


Cry of the Space Whale

by MiladyDragon



Series: Dragon-Verse: Series Two [13]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragon-Verse, Dragons, F/F, F/M, Horror, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-01-14 21:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1278703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiladyDragon/pseuds/MiladyDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When one of Rhys Williams' employees is killed in a road accident and Torchwood investigates, he is determined to get to the bottom of what happened...and to find out just what was wrong with the meat that had been in the back of his friend's lorry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everyone! This is the Dragon-Verse version of "Meat". Hope you enjoy!

 

_**1 September 2008** _

 

Rhys Williams had the radio in his company vehicle turned all the way up so he could hear it over the slightly squeaky windscreen wipers that were making the pitiful attempt to clear the rain away. He was singing at the top of his lungs, and somewhere in the back of his mind he was very grateful that no one was there to hear it. He’d been told many times that he’d always had more enthusiasm than talent, but he really didn’t care all that much.

 

_“Who can you trust?_

_“Who can you trust to transport your cars?_

_“Harwood’s!_

_“You won’t be sorry…with a Harwood’s lorry!”_

 

Rhys laughed as the announcer began in on the news and weather. It might have seemed silly to anyone else, but that was the first time that jingle had been on the air, and he got an almost childish glee out of finally hearing it in its entirety after waiting for months for it to air.

His mobile rang, and Rhys barely managed to stop rolling his eyes as he pulled over to the side to the road to answer it. Glancing at the caller ID, he flipped it open and didn’t even give his secretary a chance to answer. “Did you hear it, Ruth?” he chuckled, wanting to know what she’d thought of it.

 _“Yes, I did,”_ she replied. _“But Rhys –“_

“I wrote that last bit,” he couldn’t help but crow. “Sounded good, didn’t it?” He was very pleased that the advert agency Harwood’s had engaged had taken his suggestion because it was damned catchy and he was quite proud of how it worked.

 _“It’s very nice,”_ Ruth agreed, _“but Rhys…there’s been an accident…”_

Rhys lost all of his good humour.

 

***********

 

There were emergency vehicles blocking both lanes of the roadway and traffic was backed up quite a distance as Rhys approached the location of the road accident. Red and blue lights strobed and caught in the raindrops as he pulled over to the shoulder, creating some sort of bizarre rainbow in the shitty weather. He set the handbrake of his car and got out, his left foot stepping right into a puddle. He made a face as he shook out his foot, but he didn’t let it distract him too much as he made his way toward the barricades that the coppers had set up, walking faster until he was at a near jog by the time he’d reached the yellow tape that had been stretched across the roadway.

“I’m sorry Sir,” the copper who was standing at the taped line stopped Rhys with a hand to his chest. “Please get back to your vehicle.”

“I’m Rhys Williams,” he exclaimed. He motioned toward the lorry ahead. His heart clenched when he saw it, mangled and lying on its side. “I’m the manager at Harwood’s.” There was another vehicle nearby, flipped onto its roof, more water soaking the ground around it than could be blamed on the rain.

It made him sick to see it.

The policeman’s face bloomed into recognition. “You can check on the vehicle later –“

“Bugger the vehicle!” Rhys nearly shouted. “I know the driver! Is he…?” Rhys faded out as he caught sight of a gurney being manoeuvred around the wreckage. His heart sank as he saw the emergency blanket pulled up over the head of the body on it. “Oh god,” he whispered.

The copper looked and sounded sympathetic. “He didn’t make it, sorry.”

Rhys could see that. He wanted to sag back and mourn, but he knew he couldn’t, not just yet. He could do that later once he’d found out what had happened.

“Can you give me some details, Sir?”

He shook his head, tearing his eyes away from the covered gurney. “Oh…yeah. His name is Leighton…Leighton Reynolds.” Leighton had been a friend, and Rhys was having trouble wrapping his head around the idea that the solid young man he’d played footie with on the weekends was really gone.

“Next of kin?”

His stomach sank into his shoes. “He has a wife…Jen. Oh, god…they just had a baby…” He remembered the party they’d thrown in the office when the little boy had been born. Leighton had been so very proud to be a dad, already planning his kid’s future as they drank the beer Mr Harwood had provided just for the occasion. This was gonna just kill Jen, losing Leighton so soon after their family had just gotten started. They’d been so happy…and Rhys had been happy for them, despite the small, sharp stab of jealousy that his friend had had something that Rhys had wanted not that long ago, and couldn’t have anymore.

“Do you have an address?”

Rhys groaned. “Yeah, took him to football…54 Keppoch Street, Roath.” He watched as the gurney was settled into the back of the ambulance and the doors closed with a bang that sounded like the crack of doom.

He needed to call people. He needed to call Mr Harwood and let him know what had happened. He needed to comfort Jen and make sure she was going to be okay. He needed to tell the other drivers; Leighton had been genuinely liked among the crew, and they deserved to know. This was bound to be hard on everyone and there wasn’t anything he could do to make it any easier to deal with.

But he couldn’t leave. He couldn’t just go and let them take Leighton away without some answers he could take back and give to his loved ones. He couldn’t do that to his friend.

A siren wailed as the ambulance pulled away, carrying Leighton Reynolds with it. Rhys felt something crack a little inside him. This wasn’t how he’d ever thought their friendship would end. But then, hardly anything in his life up to this moment had really been all that simple; this was just the latest in a line of heartbreaks that went back even beyond his first meeting with a certain Gwen Cooper.

“I’m…” he swallowed, trying to regain just that little bit of professionalism he’d need in order to get things done. Then he could grieve. “I’m gonna have to arrange to remove the lorry…”

“Not yet,” the constable said, surprising Rhys. “There’s something suspicious in the back.”

Rhys frowned. “It was just meat. Leighton was taking it to the abattoir.” What the hell was going on?

“Yeah, well,” the copper said, shrugging. “Torchwood want a look at it first.”

_Torchwood?_

There was a part of Rhys who was immediately scared at the sound of that name. After everything Torchwood had messed up in his life…it was hard not to shiver, knowing they were coming.

But, at the same time…Torchwood had opened up an entirely new world for him. Even though his contact with them had been pretty minimal after they’d fired Gwen, it had been enough in just that short a time to show him so much he’d never begun to understand. He couldn’t help but dream of Torchwood, and of all its horrors and wonders and had awakened in a cold sweat each time. And he still couldn’t make up his mind whether he was unbelievably grateful or just plain pissed off for having ever met Ianto Jones and his bloody team. He hated being that conflicted, because if he was honest with himself he genuinely liked the dragon who looked like a regular bloke most of the time.

Still, if Torchwood was on their way, then something bad must be going on. Had something been taking place right under his nose? Had Leighton been involved in something? Just what had one of his friends been up to, right in front of Rhys and he’d never seen it? He didn’t want to think badly of Leighton. He really didn’t. There had to be another explanation as to what was going on.

The copper was about to say something else when his attention was diverted by the arrival of a black SUV pulling up to the scene of the accident, blue lights strobing about the windscreen. Rhys automatically took a step forward, but the tape stopped him and there was no bloody way he was going to risk getting arrested by crossing into what was looking more and more like a crime scene, even if he didn’t want to even consider that particular outcome.

The doors opened on the SUV, and four people got out. Rhys immediately recognised Harkness, Ianto, and their doctor, but the fourth he had no idea about. He was just a bit shorter than Harkness, and would have looked just like any normal bloke on the street in his jeans and leather jacket, but Rhys couldn’t help but notice something off about him…and that he seemed to fit in with the team just fine because of whatever it was that Rhys was seeing but couldn’t figure out.

So, this was who they’d hired to replace Gwen. Ianto had mentioned it, when Rhys had talked to him about a month ago…when Rhys had called to let them know that Gwen had left town – left him – for a new job and a new start in Swansea.

It had almost been a relief when she’d left, and Rhys had felt guilty about feeling that way about the woman he’d loved. But he’d seen her at her worst, and hadn’t been able to handle it. He hadn’t been cut out to be her babysitter, and her being away from Cardiff had been the best possible solution, especially since it had been her own decision.

Rhys had mourned the years they’d been together, but he’d kissed her goodbye and had wished her luck with her new life.

The team was making its way toward the wrecked lorry, and Rhys raised his hand, trying to get their attention before he’d realised what he’d done. He told himself that Torchwood would be able to figure out what Leighton had been up to, and that eventually they’d need to speak to him anyway about the load and where it had been going. Why not get it out of the way now?

The new bloke was the one to notice him, and Rhys watched as he spoke to Harper. Harper caught Rhys’ eye, nodding slightly, and then he caught up with Harkness and Jones, stopping them before they could get into the back of the wrecked lorry. Both of them turned to regard Rhys, Harkness also nodding in his direction and then speaking to Jones. Then the three headed into the lorry as Ianto made his way through the crash site and over toward Rhys.

It still seemed a bit fantastical that the man walking toward him wasn’t a man at all, but a really old dragon wearing a human face. Before meeting Ianto Jones in that pub all those months ago Rhys had thought his Gran’s stories of dragons and magic had been just that…stories, ones that she’d used to entertain him before sending him off for bed. Never in his wildest imaginings – and, if Rhys was completely honest with himself, he didn’t consider himself all that creative – would he have believed those stories were real.

“I’ll take care of things here, Constable,” Ianto said, stepping up to the warning tape. He was perfectly groomed in a nice suit with a dark wool coat over it, in order to keep the rain and chill wind away. It really didn’t hit Rhys until that moment that he was in just a company shirt with the sleeves rolled up his forearms, and that the rain had managed to soak through, and he couldn’t help but shiver.

“Yes Sir,” the constable answered, moving away from their area of the tape.

“Good morning, Rhys,” Ianto greeted him cordially. “What are you doing here?”

The question brought Rhys’ mind back on events. “That’s one of ours,” he said, waving toward the crashed lorry. “It’s from Harwood’s.”

Ianto’s expression turned sad. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Yeah, thanks mate.” Rhys drew in a deep breath, and then released it slowly. “The driver was a friend of mine.”

“Had I met him?” Rhys thought back. Had Ianto met Leighton in the two times the dragon had come to the football? “Yeah, I think you did…Leighton Reynolds.”

There was a pause, and then Ianto said, “Yes, I do think I recall him. He just had a baby, right?”

Rhys nodded, impressed that the dragon remembered that. “This is gonna just destroy his Jen.” His eyes flickered toward the lorry, and he couldn’t see the rest of Ianto’s team any longer. “Just what’s going on? That should just be a load of meat going to the abattoir, and nothing else.”

“One of the first constables on scene noticed there was something strange with the meat,” Ianto explained. “We were called in to either confirm or deny his observations. If you could get us information on the person or company that hired out the lorry…”

“Yeah, sure.” What could possibly be wrong with the meat? And then it hit him. “Is it alien or something?”

“We don’t know yet,” Ianto admitted. “We’ll need to run some tests…” His hand went up to his ear, and Rhys wondered if he had some sort of high-tech ear thing that he’d seen in spy movies. “Jack says there’s something definitely wrong,” he said after a few seconds. “They’re going to take it in and we’ll check into it.”

Rhys nodded, worried about just what Leighton had gotten himself in to. It seemed hard to believe; the man had been a straightforward bloke, not one to get dragged into anything shady. But if that was alien, and it was being sent to the abattoir…

He suddenly had the urge to go home and throw out every kind of meat he’d just bought recently.

There was another pause, and then Rhys could see the other three Torchwood people coming out of the back of the lorry. The doctor said something to a couple of coppers standing nearby, who nodded. One of them started speaking into his radio, and Rhys figured that was him calling in to have the load confiscated.

“Jack says I should come with you back to Harwood’s,” Ianto said, distracting Rhys from watching the others get into the SUV and leave.

He chuckled, although it sounded weak. “He just kinda assumed you’d be going back with me, didn’t he?” Ianto echoed the laugh. “He trusts in my powers of persuasion…and you wanting to get to the bottom of this.” Rhys knew he didn’t have to answer. Yes, he really wanted to know what the hell was going on, and just what his friend had been up to.

He only hoped it wasn’t as bad as he was thinking.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

_**1 September 2008** _

 

Rhys made a U-turn – with the assistance of a pleasant-looking constable after a word from Ianto – and headed back toward Harwood’s. His mind was running like a hamster in a wheel: racing, and yet not really getting anywhere.

This just didn’t seem real. Even glancing into his rear view mirror and seeing the strobing lights from the accident scene wasn’t putting it into any sort of perspective for him.

And no, it wasn’t anything to do with Leighton’s death. That, he understood. Accidents did happen, and while Harwood’s had an excellent safety record this wasn’t the first time one of their drivers had been injured or even killed in a road accident. Yes, it was the first since Rhys had become manager, and so was the one to play on his conscience – although, really, it wasn’t his fault even though he’d been the one to sign off on the paperwork that had approved the job and the release of the lorry for it.

He couldn’t stop thinking of Jen, and that little baby who would never know his dad, and the fact that Leighton, his friend, had apparently been doing something underhanded in plain sight and Rhys hadn’t caught onto it.

And what was worse was that it was something that had brought bloody Torchwood sniffing around.

That was just the icing on the cake, that was. Because Rhys had been perfectly happy with his limited contact with Torchwood – which had consisted mostly of Ianto Jones showing up for footie a couple of times and some phone calls from him or Harkness checking in on the relationship that had somehow become a chore.

A chore that he’d found himself disliking until even Gwen had noticed something was wrong and had gone off to Swansea and to let him stew in his own issues. What was worse, there were times when he was glad that she had left him, because Rhys had absolutely hated knowing that she didn’t remember nearly a year of their lives together, and that it had been her own doing. That Gwen had chosen to do the things that she had, and that somehow she’d thought she’d be beyond the consequences of her actions. That she’d been right about everything despite the evidence that she’d been completely and utterly wrong.

He still had the ring. It was in his sock drawer. He’d never given it back to her, had never asked her to marry him again. Rhys couldn’t, knowing what she’d done to him and of her cheating on him with another man. If she’d really come to him and confessed, he might have taken her back; taken the responsibility of sleeping with her co-worker without the use of that damned Retcon…but now he would never know how he’d have reacted. She’d taken that decision out of his hands by making him forget it.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t understand the secrecy. He did. He himself was keeping the same secrets and wouldn’t even dream of giving them up. But he’d come to realise that Gwen had been lying to him about other things, keeping things from him that didn’t need to be hidden, like that run-in with the cannibals out in the countryside. Cannibals…now that had been a fucking shock.

Although, he knew he couldn’t really blame Torchwood for what happened with Gwen. They had merely opened his eyes to her true nature, and in a way he should really have thanked them for it. But he wasn’t at all sure he could trust them, for the same reason. Gwen might have been alright if she’d never met up with Harkness and his bunch. She might have still lied to him, and kept things from him, but what she would have hidden wouldn’t have been so explosive…

No, he couldn’t think that way. It really wasn’t her team’s fault that Gwen had turned out the way she had.

Rhys glanced over at his passenger. Jones sat beside him, his hands folded in his lap and his eyes watchful as they travelled. At first, he’d been so excited to know that his Gran’s stories had been true; that dragons did exist, that there were more mysteries out there in the world that regular people had no clue about. She’d told him all about magic, and about her mother, who’d been a healer, and Rhys had even seen her do magic on occasion. Rhys’ own mother followed what was now called the Old Religion, and had her own tiny spark of magic, but he’d been born pretty normal.

He remembered Gwen scoffing at such things, and sighed.

He suddenly felt eyes on him, and knew that the sigh had been heard. “I truly am sorry about your friend,” Ianto said softly, misinterpreting the cause of it.

“Yeah. I just can’t get past the fact that Leighton was up to something.” Ianto hummed softly. “We don’t even know if he was up to something,” he pointed out. “He might have had no knowledge of what was going on. He could be innocent in this, Rhys.”

There was that. Rhys felt a bit better after that, because he really didn’t want to think badly of Leighton. “I have the records of the transaction in my office. Hopefully we’ll find something there.”

“If we can at least check out the person or company that rented the lorry, that should give us a clue.”

Rhys chewed his lower lip for a second, and then finally asked the question he really wanted the answer to. “What about the accident? Will Torchwood investigate that too?”

“No, the police will; they’re better equipped to handle road accidents. In fact, from what we’d heard before we’d arrived, they’d already worked out that the other car was the reason for the crash. Witnesses claim that the car attempted to pass the lorry, but it cut back into traffic too soon and clipped the front end of the lorry and with the roads wet…”

Rhys let out a breath he hadn’t been aware that he’d been holding. Thank god for that, that Leighton hadn’t been the cause of the accident. It wasn’t even because Harwood’s would have been liable; no, it was more because he didn’t want Leighton to have caused it, especially if he was actually up to something else that would get him into more trouble. It also meant that Jen and the baby would get Leighton’s benefits and the insurance money. They were going to need it.

Rhys made a mental note to set up a collection for them. He knew the drivers would gladly give what they could to help them out.

The rest of the drive was made in silence, and he was somewhat grateful for that. It gave him time to get his thoughts in order.

Rhys knew what he really wanted to do was to prove Leighton innocent of everything. That his friend hadn’t had any idea of what he’d been hauling. That Torchwood wouldn’t get away with placing blame where it shouldn’t go.

That they wouldn’t touch anyone else’s lives without destroying things completely.

Okay, sure, he knew he was holding a grudge. He recalled vividly the day he’d been approached in a pub by a man who was actually a hidden dragon, and how excited he’d been. He could finally be the confidante of his fiancée, and she would never have to hide anything from him again. That night had also brought truths to his Gran’s tales and his family’s history, which had been a bonus.

The next day, Gwen had lost nearly a years’ worth of her memories and Rhys had volunteered to be her secret carer just in case she recalled things she shouldn’t.

Then it had been Rhys keeping things from her, and he honestly couldn’t understand how she’d been able to do it with a nearly-clean conscience.

Well, he didn’t have to do that to her anymore. Gwen was gone, off to a new life, leaving Rhys on his own because she couldn’t stand being in Cardiff any longer. It had been a relief, which had made him feel guilty.

He still felt guilty about being glad she was gone. That wasn’t how he was supposed to feel when it was the person he’d considered the love of his life was gone for good.

He was still poking his guilt like he would with a bad tooth when Rhys pulled into Harwood’s car park, pulling into his company vehicle’s assigned parking space. He turned the ignition off, twisting in his seat to give his passenger a look. “I want to make one thing perfectly clear,” he said, determined. “If Leighton is actually guilty of something, I don’t want Torchwood ruining his life, especially since whatever the hell it is is so bloody secret no one will ever know the truth.”

Ianto met his gaze, his eyes old and sad. “Rhys, we don’t want to ruin anyone. We do need to know what this meat is, what your man has been doing with it, and where it came from. Do you honestly think anyone would believe it if we came right out and said that meat was some sort of alien? The only thing we’re interested in is making certain there’s not a danger to the people of Cardiff. Blackening your friend’s name isn’t going to do that.”

Rhys felt somewhat mollified by the reassurance, but despite the awe he felt toward Ianto Jones being a mystical creature and all, he just wasn’t sure he could completely trust Torchwood.

Okay, maybe he was being a bit too harsh; after all, it hadn’t been Torchwood’s fault that Gwen had turned into a person Rhys hadn’t recognised. She’d been like that all along, but it had finally been the stress and excitement of Torchwood that had brought everything to the surface. And even if she’d stayed with the police there was no guarantee it wouldn’t have happened there, either; in fact, he’d begun to see signs of it ever since her first day.

Still, there was that petty part of Rhys Williams who felt what he thought was a purely understandable anger toward everything Torchwood for ruining his own life. He’d had too many plans, for himself and his Gwen, and now those dreams were dead and dust. Gwen would never come back to him; she’d made that clear. To her, he was a reminder of what she’d lost, even though she had no clue what that actually was.

“Well then,” he finally said, “let’s get started.”

He climbed out of the car, and made his way into the office, ducking slightly in order to keep rain from the overhang from dripping down into his collar. Rhys was already wet anyway, and he was glad he always kept extra work shirts there at his desk. The last thing he needed was to come down with something.

Rhys led Ianto down the short hallway, past the front desk where the customers would come in and do their business, and then into his own office with its window overlooking the maintenance bays where they did work on the company vehicles. Ruth was at her desk when they entered the cluttered area; she stood up quickly, her mouth open to say something, but it snapped shut when she’d noticed that Rhys wasn’t alone.

He didn’t say anything to her. Instead, he walked to his desk, pulling out the chair and sitting. Rhys used the mouse to wake up his computer, at the same time pulling the book with today’s logs in it around so he could check the actual paperwork. Sometimes the computer wasn’t as updated as it could have been, which he was trying to work on, and it never hurt to check the physical record.

Rhys could feel Ianto watching him as he called up the file for today’s loads. Yep, as he’d suspected…no one had updated the computerised records yet. Still, he was able to get a bit of information from what looked like the scant billing records they had. Another thing he was going to get onto people about. “The firm is called Harris and Harris,” he said, without looking up. “They came to us about two months ago. It’s a weekly contract, payment on pick-up.”

“What’s their address?” Ianto asked quietly.

Glancing around the standing dragon, Rhys glared daggers at his secretary at the lack of information he had to admit to. “There’s no address down here,” he said more to her than to his guest.

Ruth, who had been sitting at her own desk, jumped up and made a vague, pointing motion in the general direction of the computer. “There’s a pick-up point,” she answered. “They said it was hard to find.”

“Do you often do business like this?” Ianto didn’t sound accusing, but Rhys couldn’t help but take it that way.

“As long as they pay their bill,” he countered, letting his anger show in his voice, “they can ask us to come out to bloody Timbuktu for a pick up.” It was true, but it still bothered Rhys to no end that he didn’t have any answers to give Ianto.

Then he slumped back in his seat. Getting mad wasn’t going to do Leighton any good. “”I’m sorry,” he muttered, finally looking up at the dragon, “but all I’ve got is a service station on the A470, about fifteen miles from Cardiff.”

“Is there a phone number?” Ianto asked.

“No, nothing.” Rhys suddenly felt defeated. He wanted to make sure that Leighton hadn’t been up to no good, but how could he do that if there wasn’t any way he could check?

“Where was load going?”

“He was taking it to the Caerwen Abattoir. It’s a processing plant…just a general meat supplier for Cardiff.”

That thought brought back the notion to go home and throw all of the meat he’d bought recently and turn vegetarian. Whatever the hell that meat had been, Rhys didn’t want to think he’d been eating it all this time.

“What time did Leighton leave?” Ianto asked.

For that, Rhys turned to the paper log. He flipped open the large, ringed binder to the trip sheets dated today. “He signed out at 10am, and was scheduled to be back here at 1pm.”

“Leighton was the regular driver,” Ruth volunteered. “After that first time, they just went through him for their deliveries.”

“Is that usual?”

Rhys shrugged. “It can be, yeah. If it’s a regular delivery, then we usually keep the same driver on that route. It saves from having to get a new driver familiar with the route.”

Ianto nodded. “If that’s all you have, I’m going to head back and we can start working on a way to trace the route.”

“Do you need a ride back?” Rhys asked, trying to be polite.

The man smiled. “No, I can find my own way back.”

“Look, I want to help you find out what’s going on.”

“That earned Rhys an appraising look. Then Ianto shook his head. “I appreciate the offer –“

“Leighton was a friend of mine!” Rhys felt a full-blown rant coming on, but he throttled it back because Ruth was still in the room and he wasn’t about to give anything away.

“I understand,” Ianto answered softly, “but this isn’t your business, Rhys. I’ll keep you informed, but you’re not a part of the team and we’re not about to put a civilian at risk.”

Rhys wanted to point out that it was his risk to take; that he didn’t trust Torchwood to do the right thing in regards to his friend; that despite the fact that they’d been about as honest with him as they could be that he simply didn’t believe that he’d ever know the complete truth of things.

“I’ll be in touch.” Ianto gave him a smile that was heavily tinged with sadness, and then made his way out of the office.

“What was that all about?” Ruth asked, once he was gone.

Rhys didn’t answer. Instead, he rested his chin on his hand, staring at the words on the computer screen as if they would give him some sort of clue. He realised that, if he wanted to know the real truth about that meat and about what Leighton was up to, he was going to have to do something himself.

But what?

It was all he could do not to slam his head against the desk in his frustration. Rhys wasn’t some sort of secret agent; he was a haulage manager, who was pretty good with routes and logistics and who was a glorified bookkeeper when it came to travel logs and mileages…

Oh bloody hell. _Of course!_

Rhys sat up straight, flipping the log open to the past week, when Leighton had taken the last load of suspicious meat to the abattoir. He couldn’t help but grin at the somewhat scrawling lines of numbers in the log. Torchwood hadn’t asked for any sort of trip totals. But Rhys had them all right at hand: times, odometer readings, petrol amounts. It was all at his fingertips, and if there was one thing Rhys Williams was good at, it was making sure his guys weren’t taking side trips or goofing off when they were supposed to be working.

He had the round trip miles. He had the total petrol usage. He could easily check on the distance back to the yard from the abattoir and from the yard to this service station where Leighton would have met whoever was responsible for the load. Rhys couldn’t help but grin. He quickly pulled up the company’s route program on his computer, and began working.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

_**1 September 2008** _

 

Rhys sat in the driver’s seat of his personal vehicle, the map he’d printed out resting on the steering wheel as he sighed out his frustration. His careful calculations had put Leighton’s possible mystery meat suppliers somewhere in Merthyr, if his guess was right and that his friend had been going to the actual source and not just waiting at the service station for a pick-up. There was a 50/50 chance on it, one that Rhys had been willing to take in order to get to the bottom of things.

Although if his friend had been going directly to wherever the hell he was getting his loads, Rhys couldn’t get it out of his head that he’d known exactly what was going on.

He wasn’t sure how to think about that.

If the mapping program had been correct, there were three places within the radius of where Leighton could have gone. It was possible that he’d gotten his sums wrong, but Rhys didn’t think so. Being exacting in his maths was one of the reasons he’d been promoted, and it was something that Rhys was proud of. He wanted to be fair, but with petrol prices going up keeping track of his guys and where they were going was necessary, and they – on the whole – understood that.

The reason he was using his personal automobile was so he wouldn’t have to write up paperwork on this little jaunt, because he wanted to keep this out of the books. He didn’t want to have to explain and besides, he worked with a bunch of nosy parkers, and Ruth was the worst. There was no way in hell he was going to tell anyone what he was up to; it would make it sound like he didn’t trust one of his own.

Okay, truth to tell Rhys didn’t think he could trust what he knew about Leighton anymore, but he had to figure out the truth. And he just had this sinking feeling that he’d never hear it from Torchwood.

He consulted the map. One of the places that had come up in his search he’d known about; they’d been customers before new management had come in and had decided that they’d wanted their own lorries to cart their knock-off trainers to their retailers. The other two he wasn’t sure about, and neither had come up with a company name in Harwood’s mapping database. Rhys knew he’d have to check both of them out, and hope that he’d get some sort of answers.

There was a very small voice in his head telling him he should head back to the office and let Torchwood handle it, but Rhys was just far too stubborn to give this up and go home with his tail tucked between his legs.

He dropped the map down onto the passenger seat, putting his car into drive and pulling out into traffic from the lay-by he’d parked in in order to check his route.

He’d only driven a few feet when a very familiar black SUV passed him as if he was standing still.

Rhys cursed under his breath, barely resisting the urge to slam his fist into the steering wheel. Instead, he practically stomped on the accelerator, in order to catch up with the speeding SUV. He gave a silent prayer that there weren’t any coppers out as he slowly caught up, just in time to see it pull off onto a side road.

If he was recalling the map correctly – and he was, Rhys knew – then this road led to one of the other warehouses he’d found online. He turned down it, slowing quite a lot, not wanting for Torchwood to notice him. About the only thing Rhys knew about following anyone came from the telly, and he certainly didn’t want to get caught. The last thing he needed was to wake up and not remember where he’d been.

Not that he’d know anything was wrong, of course, which made it all so much worse.

There was a turn-off to the right; Rhys could just make out the SUV ahead, driving at a break-neck speed that had Rhys wondering if they’d even make it to the warehouse without crashing. He turned the wheel onto the side road, hoping it would head in the direction he needed to go.

It did curve around, and Rhys could make out the roof of the warehouse through the trees, the metal roof glimmering in the weak sunlight that had driven the rain from earlier away. As it got closer, he began to have more second thoughts. What would happen if Torchwood found him there? Would they think he was in on it? Just what was Rhys thinking about walking into?

Sure, he needed answers. He needed to know just what Leighton had been up to. He needed to know if his friend had been up to something bad. Answers to those questions were what had had him calculating distances and mileages and all that shit just to get where he was now, on the edge of discovering just what the hell was going on.

Fuck it. He had to see it through, even if it meant he’d get on the bad side of Torchwood. He had no real clue what he would find up there in that warehouse, but he had to know the truth.

His tires slid slightly on the wet pavement as he pulled his car to a halt. Rhys got out, looking around. The place was rundown and looked abandoned, and maybe he’d seen too many movies but it looked very much like where an illicit gang would hang out.

The cheep of the car alarm being set echoed over the empty space, and Rhys barely stifled the twitch that came from the fact that he might have just announced his presence to anyone in the area. His boots squeaked a bit against the ground as he spun in place, making note of the door into the warehouse and the utter desolation around him.

Rhys wondered where Torchwood had hidden. Were they getting ready to storm the place? Or were they like him, wanting to get more information before going in? He glanced around, almost hoping to catch a glimpse of the eponymous black SUV. It was nowhere to be found, but then Rhys figured they were a lot more circumspect than he was being.

That thought made the whole thing he was doing really hit home. Rhys wasn’t some sort of spy, or alien catcher, or whatever; he was a normal guy, who worked a job and who kept a flat and had just lost his girlfriend because of a shadowy organisation that had come along and thought she’d be a good soldier in their fight against the evils of the universe.

That, of course, just meant that they really hadn’t known Gwen all that well. She was no one’s soldier, thank you very much.

Rhys suddenly realised that being in this place, at this very moment, was most likely a really stupid idea. He turned back to his car, determining that the best thing he could do was leave it to Torchwood. Yes, he’d wanted to know what Leighton was into, but the reality of the situation had finally set in for him. Rhys Williams had always been a stubborn bastard, and that stubbornness had gotten him this far, but even he knew when it was time to leave before he could get into more trouble than what he was already in.

He didn’t get that chance. The sound of an engine had Rhys turning to see a sports car pull in, blocking his own exit from the premises. Rhys cursed himself for being an idiot as two men got out, and they were giving him the onceover that had him backing up a step.

Both men looked out of place in such a nice car. One had dark hair, one greasy lock falling across his forehead. The other appeared a bit cleaner than his companion, but not by much; estate toughs, was Rhys’ first thought, used to living from hand to mouth and thinking with their fists.

There really was only one thing he could do in this situation, and he only hoped all those poker nights had taught him something because his brain was gibbering at him to get the hell out.

He began walking toward the two, taking a deep breath and telling his mind to shut the fuck up. Rhys needed to be able to think, to bluff his way out of this, because if the bulge under the one guy’s shirt was any indication there would be bullets involved if he screwed this up.

“Don’t even bother running, mate,” the black-haired guy said, pulling a radio out from somewhere. “Greg,” he said into it, “we got a bit of a problem.”

Yeah, Rhys didn’t even have to guess what the problem was.

The guy motioned Rhys toward the door. “After you.”

Rhys didn’t even bother arguing. As he made his way toward the door, he heard whoever was on the other end of the radio say something, but there was too much feedback for him to catch the words. Apparently, the tough had, and he stepped in front of Rhys and pulled the door open, practically pushing Rhys inside.

“Look, lads,” Rhys said, avoiding the inevitable stumble into the warehouse, “I don’t mean any harm. Honestly.” He kept his hands away from his body, like he’d seen in all those police dramas on TV.

There was another man waiting inside, and Rhys followed him as they headed deeper into the warehouse. The place was rundown, and there was a musty smell coming from somewhere down the hallway. There were dirty spots along the concrete walls, and several of the overhead fluorescent strips were either out or flickering, and Rhys realised these guys were simply squatting there, doing whatever the hell it was and no one knowing they were even on premises.

No one said anything as Rhys was escorted down the hallway. It was a short walk, and then the hallway opened out into a room, the entry covered with a piece of plastic that only intensified the scent of must. The room was long and narrow and held the tools of the butchering trade: hooks, saws, cleavers, long tables that had once been clean but were now blood-stained. Rhys barely held back the urge to gag as he could make out huge chunks of red meat on the tables, men working around them, cutting them down into smaller hunks that were tossed into individual trays.

And then there was the sound.

It was a low moaning, and it sent a shiver up Rhys’ spine. There was an echoing, unearthly quality to it, as well as a throb of pain that had his heart pounding in his chest. Whatever that was, Rhys had no doubt it was the source of the meat, and that it was still alive.

He really, really wanted to be sick.

A short, nerdy looking bloke came into the room, his expression upset. “You should have waited for the ketamine injection before doing that!” he exclaimed.

Rhys wondered just what ketamine was; he swore he’d heard it somewhere, but just not in what context.

One of the workers shrugged and continued what he was doing. “What about the hoses?”

The guy rolled his eyes. “That’s only lidocaine. It’s not strong enough.”

Rhys had heard of lidocaine, as well. He thought it might have been on some sort of doctor show, but couldn’t be certain.

That moan was beginning to get to him. Whatever they were using those drugs on, it wasn’t doing a damned bit of good to be causing it to make that sort of noise.

He couldn’t do anything, though. He was stuck there, until he could get himself out…if he could. Or he’d just have to wait until Torchwood got him out, and despite knowing he was in over his head Rhys was still proud enough to not want to be rescued.

The dark-haired man scoffed, “Well, if you care so much, go and work for the RSPCA. Or don’t they pay enough?”

The third man – it must be that Greg person that had been on the radio – pointed toward Rhys, pulling his attention away from the confrontation. “Oi, you! Through here!”

Rhys didn’t have any other choice but to obey, but he couldn’t help but take another look around.

“Shift!” the man shouted.

Rhys jumped, startled. He turned and went through the door, which led into an office. It looked like any other business office he’d seen, with desks and shelves, and a safe that was against one wall. He was pushed down into one of the chairs, and two of the men came round to face him. Rhys felt an itch at the back of his neck and figured there had to be someone behind him as well, most likely to keep him from making a run for it.

Not that he’d get very far.

“Who sent you?” the taller of the two demanded.

Rhys stared between the two men, his brain scrambling for an answer that would be accepted.

“Come on,” the dark haired guy said, “don’t waste our time.”

“No one sent me,” Rhys exclaimed, saying the first thing that came to him. There really was only one way he could have found out about this place, and he quickly came up with a response. “I, um…I came on my own. Wanted to meet the boss.”

“You’re looking at him,” the dark one said.

“Ignore my little brother,” the other snorted.

The company that had hired out the lorry had been called Harris and Harris, and Rhys put that together almost instantly. “I, uh…” He scrambled into his jacket pocket, bringing out one of his business cards. “I’m with Harwood’s. Harwood’s Haulage.” The one Harris took the card, staring at it as if it was about to bite him or something. “Uh, Leighton…Leighton, your driver…he, um, sort of told me what was going on.” He really wished he could sound more suave and blasé, but Rhys would never have been called an actor even at the biggest stretch of the imagination.

“That mouthy git,” the shorter Harris growled, “he was paid to keep his mouth shut.”

The taller one shushed him.

This did confirm that Leighton had known what was going on. Rhys had his answer; that his friend had been taking payments to haul alien meat to the abattoir to be distributed to the people of the area. It made him want to vomit and cry at the same time. What had led Leighton to do something illegal like that?

Because it had to be illegal. There were forms and stamps and inspections that had to be done before any meat went to the abattoir, and Rhys seriously doubted any of what they were sending out from here had any of that sort of thing.

“Yeah, well,” Rhys said, keeping his voice down even if he wanted to scream it out, “he’s dead.”

The Harris brothers – and they had to be brothers, just by their looks alone – glanced at each other.

“Lorry crashed,” Rhys elaborated.

That got him two expressions of anger and panic. “Were the goods inside?” the younger demanded.

“What happened to the meat?” the taller asked harshly. “Did anyone see it?”

Of course they wouldn’t have cared that a man had died. Bastards like this only saw the bottom line and what they could get away with. Rhys had to keep himself seated, or else he would have been up, fists flying.

Rhys didn’t give a damn about their meat…Leighton was dead, and he wasn’t coming back from that. Still, he had to keep up the pretence. “No…no, I um…gathered it all up and took it to be incinerated.” He cleared his throat. “I was…was kinda hoping to take up where he left off, boys?”He knew he sounded tentative, but then Rhys had the perfect right to be freaked out at the situation. Well, if he wasn’t so pissed off, of course.

“How do we know you won’t report us?”

Rhys finally gave into the urge to roll his eyes. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Which, in his mind, was becoming a more and more idiotic position to be in. Rhys had to agree with that inner voice cause it made sense.

The younger man scoffed, while the elder simply stood up from where he’d been leaning against one of the wall shelves. “So what exactly did he tell you?” he asked, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Bloody hell. He couldn’t just come out with the whole alien meat thing, could he? Rhys scrambled a bit, finally saying, “Uh, everything? You know…that you’re cleaning up old meat?”

That got him two nearly identical smirks. “Oh, it’s a lot bigger than that.”

Yeah, Rhys was afraid of that…not that he hadn’t been expecting that sort of answer but he couldn’t just bust out with the truth of what he knew.

The two men escorted him from the office, past the bloodied butcher who had been guarding the door with a nasty-looking cleaver. They hadn’t gone far when Rhys noticed the smell.

It was horrible, like a combination of death and corruption and raw meat. Rhys put his hand up in front of his nose to try to block it out, but it didn’t work. At the same time, that sound became louder, sending shudders throughout his body at the terrible hopelessness in it. Rhys’ shoes squished as he walked, and he was afraid to look down to see what he was trodding in out of a sense of self-preservation. He didn’t want to know if it was blood or not, although his imagination was supplying its own guesses.

“What’s that smell?” he asked weakly, swallowing hard. “And that noise?”

“You get used to it,” one of the Harris brothers answered. Rhys didn’t pay attention to which one it was.

Again, the corridor they were in opened up into a larger room, this one huge. At one time it must have been a storage area, but now it was filled with something that Rhys fairly couldn’t comprehend.

It was enormous, taking up most of the room. Its skin was dark and wrinkled, with a lighter coloured patch close to one end. The pitiful cries were coming from it, loud and low and reminding him of whale song he’d once heard on some nature special, only filled with pain and terror and sadness and Rhys couldn’t help but want to weep at the sight of it, even knowing that he couldn’t show any sort of weakness in front of his would-be ‘business’ partners.

He stepped closer, and that lighter patch of skin split open to reveal a purple-grey eye, staring at him as if pleading to be put out of its terrible misery. Rhys could see himself reflected within, and it distorted his face until it was something he couldn’t recognise any longer.

It was alive, and alien, and it was suffering at the hands of humans.

And, in that moment, Rhys Williams had an epiphany.

He wasn’t there because he was afraid Torchwood would sweep everything under the carpet, and that he’d never know what had happened to his friend.

He wasn’t there to find out just what Leighton had been up to, or if he’d been some sort of innocent victim in all this.

No, he wasn’t there because of either of those two reasons, no matter what he’d told himself ever since he’d seen the road accident that had taken Leighton’s life.

Rhys was there because of Gwen Cooper.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**_1 September 2008_ **

****

Rhys strode down the length of Mermaid Quay, the taste of stale vomit still in his mouth despite the bottle of water he’d guzzled once he’d gotten back to his car, and not even the sea air could dismiss the terrible stink of that poor, tortured creature from his nostrils either. 

He hadn’t been able to get out of that warehouse fast enough, but he hadn’t wanted to give too much of his disgust and horror away, because he didn’t want to get shot or something.  He’d managed to convince the Harris brothers – who’d introduced themselves as Dale and Greg – that he was still up to helping them move the meat it was butchering off that poor creature, and it seemed like they’d almost been expecting him to puke his guts out.  They’d discussed terms of payment, and had arranged to pick-up a load for tomorrow, to replace the one that had been in the lorry accident. 

Which was why he was currently heading toward Torchwood’s base.

No one had shown up to shut the whole damned operation down, which pissed Rhys off.  He _knew_ they’d been there; he’d followed them part of the way in.  Why hadn’t they come in, guns blazing or whatever the hell alien hunters did?  Surely they would have, once they’d figured out that they’d been in the right place.  Something else had happened to keep them out, and Rhys wanted to know what that was, because that thing in the warehouse needed to be saved from those bastards if even to be put out of its terrible misery.

Walking up to the door to the Tourist Centre, Rhys flung it open and entered, ready to let whoever it was on the other side of the counter have it…until he realised it was a blonde-haired kid beaming at him happily, looking quite eager to please, at which point the rant he’d been building up to fizzled out.

“Welcome to Mermaid Quay,” she said cheerfully.  She was wearing a blue blazer over a white blouse, a nametag reading ‘Deborah’ on the lapel.  She looked to be a student of some sort, if Rhys was any judge, and not someone Torchwood would have recruited.   “How can I help you today?”

Rhys suddenly doubted that he had the correct place, but he recalled that this was the way they’d brought him out after Gwen’s Retconning.  He straightened his shoulders, giving the girl his best smile.  “I’m here to see either Captain Harkness or Mr Jones,” he replied. 

Deborah frowned slightly.  “I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you mean.  Are you sure you have the right place?”

He sighed, losing the smile and letting his tiredness show.  “Yes, love; I am.  I know that Torchwood is right under our feet, so why don’t you get on the phone with your bosses and have one of them come up?  Tell them it’s Rhys Williams.”

Her face cleared and she seemed to change right before his eyes, going from the friendly student to someone who looked much more mature than what Rhys had originally assumed.  “Of course, Mr Williams,” she answered briskly.  “I’ll call the Captain immediately.”  She touched her ear, murmuring, “Jack, Ianto…Rhys Williams is up here to see you.”

There was silence for a few seconds, and then Deborah glanced back toward Rhys.  “Ianto is on his way up.”

“Thank you,” he said gratefully.  

Rhys didn’t have to wait long.  A section of the wall opened, and Ianto stepped into the small office.  He nodded toward Deborah, and then waved Rhys through.  “Come this way,” he invited, standing back so Rhys could get past. 

The dragon ushered him down the corridor beyond the Tourist Centre, toward the lift at the end of the hall.  The last and only time Rhys had been through there, they’d been taking Gwen down to the Hub in order to administer the Retcon that would take nearly a year of her memories.  It made him feel twitchy, and he couldn’t help but sound frustrated when he commented, “So you’re hiring ‘em directly out of school now?”

Ianto shook his head.  “Deborah might be young, but she’s been through more than you could ever know.”  He let Rhys enter the lift first, then touching the down button he sent the car toward the Hub.  “She’s not a field operative; she only helps out with the admin around here.”  His old eyes pinned Rhys like he was something that he found particularly intriguing and hadn’t been able to quite figure out.  “You should know we saw you at the warehouse.”

That got Rhys’ back up, even though he’d expected it.  “You could’ve come in and saved the day!  Isn’t that what you lot do?”

Ianto didn’t answer, kept from saying anything by the lift doors sliding open.  He stepped out first, and Rhys followed down the short hallway and to the round door at the end. 

With a blare of alarms Rhys entered the Torchwood Hub for the second time.

It was under the scrutiny of everyone in the large chamber that Rhys set foot onto the grated metal floor of the Hub.  He felt self-conscious, and that made him want to hide behind Ianto…just because.  It was either that or start a major rant on how he’d had to bluff his way out of a warehouse of sickos who were cutting up some innocent creature…when, actually, that last bit had been his fault.  He’d been the one who’d wanted to find out what was going on, and Rhys had honestly stepped into it with both feet.

‘Welcome back,” Harkness greeted him, holding out a hand to shake. 

“Yeah, thanks,” Rhys said with ill grace, accepting the hand. 

“You know everyone,” Ianto replied, “except for our newest hire, Patrick.”

Rhys got a better look at the man who’d obviously replaced Gwen on the team.  The man seemed to be somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties, and Rhys could have passed him on the street without even noticing him, except for that weird, undefinable sense of the bloke being something far more than just an ordinary guy despite the jeans and button-down he was wearing.  Of course, that could have been because of the gun that was holstered at his waist.

“Hey,” Patrick said, and Rhys was struck by the fact that he was apparently American.  He wondered vaguely if this guy was some sort of relation to Harkness.  “They haven’t told me a thing about you, just so you know.”

Rhys had to chuckle at that.  “Yeah, big on secrets this lot is.”

“Compared to my family, they’re downright chatty,” he laughed. 

Before he could get any sort of clarification on that – because Rhys knew secrets, knew what Gwen had kept from him, not even really counting the Torchwood elephant in the room – the pretty Japanese woman named Toshiko was smiling and greeting him as well.  He couldn’t be rude to her; she seemed sweet and he honestly didn’t feel like he could hold anything against her.

The other guy, the doctor, though…Rhys remembered.  He’d broken the Retcon that Gwen had given him when she’d admitted sleeping with that bastard, and he really didn’t feel very charitable even if he wasn’t about to admit the reason for it.

“Let’s take this into the boardroom,” Harkness suggested…well, it sounded a bit like an order and Rhys bristled at it but bit his tongue to keep from saying anything he might regret.  There was too much going on, and he couldn’t afford to piss these people off…not yet, anyway.  That poor beast in the warehouse needed their help and Rhys was bound and determined that it got it, even though he wasn’t exactly sure what anyone could do after what those bastards had put it through.

He followed the Torchwood team into a fancy room, with a large table surrounded by what looked like comfortable chairs.  A large screen dominated one wall, with a swirling blue pattern on it that made Rhys faintly dizzy.  There was also a small coffee machine set on a table in the corner, and Ianto headed over there immediately, working at the machine until the scent of rich coffee wafted throughout the room.

Harkness waved him to a seat next to Toshiko; she was seated at the far end, a computer opened in front of her and her fingers tapping nearly silent on the keys.  Harper was next to her, and the new guy sat beside him.  That left an open seat next to Rhys, and he guessed that Ianto would be sitting there once the coffee was done. 

Harkness himself stood at the head of the table, his hands resting on the back of the chair that was there.  His eyes were on Rhys, and he barely fought the urge to squirm under that thousand-year stare.

Thousand-year stare…yeah, he knew that was probably accurate in the Captain’s case.

“How did you know where to look for that particular warehouse?”  Harkness asked.

Rhys shrugged.  “I had access to the total miles Leighton took every time he made a pick-up and delivery.   It didn’t take much to subtract the mileage from the abattoir to the yard, and then use what was left over to work out the radius from the service station that those bastards used when they set up their operation.”

Harkness looked impressed.  “Well done.”

“Why aren’t you just assuming that I was in on it too?” Rhys wanted to know, stunned by the man’s praise.

“That was a possibility,” Ianto answered from the coffee set-up.  “But we’d done a comprehensive background check on you when Gwen was hired, and except for a couple of tickets and one drunk and disorderly when you were at university, there wasn’t anything in it that would have lent itself to any sort of criminal enterprise.”

Well, that made sense, and Rhys had already known about the background check.  “If you saw me go in,” he snapped, “then why didn’t you come in after me?  I know you were there, I saw your car.”

“We could have,” Harkness allowed, “but there was too much of a risk of you getting caught in the crossfire.”

Now that wasn’t what Rhys had been expecting, that they’d actually have taken into consideration his own safety. 

“Going in there took balls,” Harper said, almost sounding admiring under what was a healthy dose of sarcasm. 

“I had to know,” Rhys answered.  It really wasn’t the real reason…or at least not all of it, but he wasn’t about to admit that.  There was nothing like suddenly figuring out your own hidden motives when faced with the fantastic.

“And now you do,” Ianto finished, bringing over the now-finished coffee.

Rhys took a sip without even considering that the dragon might have doctored it, but in a way he wished he could forget that terrible moaning, so filled with pain and sadness and despair…he set the mug down, the coffee now tasting like ashes.

“What did you see?” Harkness asked quietly, as if he could somehow read Rhys’ mood.

Those words opened the floodgates, and Rhys found himself describing what had happened when he’d gotten to that warehouse.  He told them about the Harris brothers, and what Rhys had done to convince them that he was after the money just as Leighton had been, ignoring the disappointment in his friend for what he’d gotten involved with.

And then, there was the poor creature.

“It was this huge, shapeless beast filling the space,” he described, not bothering to hide his shudder.   “It was like this mound of flesh, except for its eyes…when it looked at me…”

“You mean it was still alive?” Toshiko gasped, horror choking her words.

Rhys nodded.  “The sounds it was making…it broke my heart.  I made me sick to know these fuckers were doing this to something that didn’t deserve it.”  He shook his head.  “It was a damned good thing they seemed to expect me to puke, cause there was no stopping it.”  He’d gotten some satisfaction out of it by throwing up on Dale Harris’ shoe.

Harkness looked as ill as Rhys felt.  He was trading looks with Ianto, and the dragon slumped down in his own chair.  “Humanity has the greatest ability for compassion…and for evil,” Ianto said, his eyes tired.

“But how did it get there?” Patrick asked.  He also looked revolted by what Rhys had reported.  “If it’s that large…”

“Probably grew,” Rhys answered.  “One of the Harris brothers claimed that it just kept growing, no matter how much they…” he swallowed convulsively, recalling the man’s words and not wanting to repeat them.  “They called it the cash cow.  Had no idea where it came from, and didn’t care.  They just saw what money they could make from it.”

“From the latest tests on the meat,” Harper said, his voice soft, “there are high levels of chloride in it, which I’m pretty sure means it usually lives in the ocean.  It probably came through the Rift and into the bay, and beached itself.  Poor creature didn’t stand a chance.”

“So it’s like some sort of alien manatee?” Harkness asked.

“Or a whale,” Rhys corrected.  “It…sounded like whale song, only sadder and in agony.”

“The protein chains must be regenerating,” Harper said, disgust in his tone, “despite the mutilation.  So it’s not only replenishing its own flesh, but it’s increasing it, giving them a brand-new meat supply. “

“It could last for years,” Patrick said, horrified.

“That poor thing,” Ianto sighed, his shoulders slumping even further. 

“Can you give us a rundown on the layout inside the warehouse?” Harkness demanded.

Rhys nodded.  “Yeah, no problem.”

The captain turned to Toshiko.  “Pull up those blueprints you found.  Let’s see if they match up to Rhys’ memory.”  He crossed his arms over his chest, and Rhys could have sworn it looked almost defensive.  “We’ll need to find another way to get in.  They’re sure to have tightened security after today.”  He gave Rhys a glare.  “If you hadn’t decided to butt in, we could have cleared this up and done something to help that creature.”

That accusation flared Rhys’ anger; he’d thought it had pretty much died out.  “Well, I had to, didn’t I?  This involved a friend of mine, and I knew I’d never get the truth out of Torchwood!” He got to his feet, the better to face Harkness.  “You lot would’ve swept everything under the rug and I’d never have known what Leighton was into!”

“Now you know,” Harkness growled, stepping almost into Rhys’ personal space.  “Are you happy that your friend was up to his eyebrows in this?  That he knew those bastards were butchering an innocent being for profit?  Does that make you feel any better?”

It really didn’t.  Rhys was very much wishing his curiosity and his need to know had just shut the fuck up and let him live in ignorance.  But he couldn’t back down now, not after what he’d seen.    “Of course not!  And If you’d bothered to let me finish, I would’ve told you that I made a deal with them to carry the next shipment, which is tomorrow!  So, instead of cocking things up, I actually have another way for you to get in, where you don’t have to go in acting like testosterone-fuelled action heroes and getting yourselves killed!  Now, if you can’t accept my help, big boy, you can stuff it!”

Rhys was breathing hard, glaring at Harkness and daring him to say anything else.  Under his anger his logical voice was telling him that he was just pissed off that Torchwood hadn’t come in and rescued him, and was accusing him of being a damsel in distress who apparently needed a knight in shining armour to get him out of trouble.  He completely ignored it, too focussed on his antagonist to give a rat’s arse what his damned inner monologue was telling him.

Harkness returned the glare, his blue eyes hard as ice. 

But then he blinked, his eyes thawing, and glanced aside toward where Ianto had been sitting.  “This is quite homoerotic.”

Rhys stood there, too stunned to move.  He could hear a chuckle behind him, as well as a rather loud snort, and the tension was broken like a shattered mug.  “Bloody hell,” he gasped, which then turned into a laugh that sounded vaguely hysterical. 

“Jesus, Harkness,” Owen spat, “you think everything is homoerotic!”

Harkness managed to look innocent as he backed away from Rhys.  “Do I really?”

“Just a bit,” Ianto answered primly.

That seemed to completely break the tension in the room, and Rhys sat back down, taking a sip of his previously abandoned coffee.  It was still warm, and tasted quite good. 

“Okay,” Harkness said, “back to business.  Rhys, can you show us what we’re up against in that warehouse?”

The swirling blue pattern that had dominated the screen on the wall had changed to a set of blueprints.  “Sure,” he answered, getting back up.  Rhys scrutinised the plans, pointing out various areas of interest that he’d seen.  “This is where the creature is,” he said, pointing out the largest room in the warehouse.  “This is where I saw them hanging and packing the meat,” he gestured to the long room where the tables and hooks and shit had been, “and I think this was where they were making the drugs that were keeping the thing quiet.”  He swallowed hard, his mind going back to that pitiful beast. 

“That makes sense,” Harper mused.  “When I was doing the tests on the meat, I found some traces of ketamine and other sedatives.”

“We’ll be riding in the back of the lorry when you go to make the pick-up,” Ianto said, sounding reassuring. 

“We’re going in,” Harkness said, “stun guns only.”

Rhys looked at him in surprise.  The man looked wrecked, and was trying to hide it.  He wondered what it was about this that was bothering him so much, but was too afraid to ask.

“We’ve handled bigger than this,” Harper protested.  “Why not just go in, guns waving?”

“These men aren’t organised criminals,” Harkness scoffed.  “If we go in there, guns blazing, they’ll kill the evidence and run.”

Rhys wasn’t sure that death would matter too much to that poor beast.  It might even be a mercy.

“I wasn’t suggesting blazing,” Harper snarked.  “I only said waving.”

“The last thing we need is a bloodbath,” Harkness answered sombrely.  “Once we’ve cleared the lorry, Rhys, you’ll get clear.”

“Alright.”  He had no choice really but to agree.  He seriously doubted he’d want to hang around too long, if he was completely honest.

“So,” Patrick said, almost sounding tentative, “once we stun gun all the bad guys, what do we do with the creature?”

“We save it,” Harkness said shortly.

Rhys nodded, agreeing completely.  This was what he’d come to Torchwood for: to get help for that poor beast crying all alone in that warehouse, surrounded by bastards who were cutting it up just to make money.    There was no way anyone with any heart would leave it there to be tortured.

And yet, he got the impression that there was something else going on that he didn’t know about…which didn’t surprise him, this being Torchwood.  The glances Harkness was giving Ianto, and vice versa, were too obvious to ignore, and judging from the others at the table – with the exception of the new bloke, who seemed vaguely confused – they also apparently knew just what was driving Harkness along.

“And how are we gonna do that?” Harper demanded.  “That thing is huge!  We don’t have any way to get it out of that warehouse!  And how do I treat it, anyway?”  The doctor leaned forward, his face full of compassion even though his words were harsh.  “Jack, it might be too damaged to save.” 

“We have to try anyway,” Harkness growled.  “We’ll stabilise it, wait for the Rift to open, and then send it on its way.  Even if it doesn’t end up back to its real home, anything would be better than staying here.”

“There’s also plenty of ocean for it to hide in if it stays here,” Ianto added.   “It’s going to be getting it out of the warehouse that’s going to be problematic.”

“We’ve all seen enough death,” and with those words, Harkness looked truly haunted.  “It’s about time we do something about it.”

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

**_2 September 2008_ **

****

Rhys entered into his office the next morning, making his way past Ruth’s desk with a half-hearted greeting, his mind on what was going to happen that morning.  He hadn’t slept well the night before, but he was so hopped up on adrenaline he doubted dozing off behind the wheel would be any problem.  Also, the coffee he’d practically guzzled on an empty stomach certainly added to his nerviness, but the very idea of food didn’t do his stomach any favours.

He grabbed the sign-out clipboard as Ruth gave her own overly chipper “Good morning!”  She got up from her own desk, bustling around the side.  “I got you some tea and a Danish…your favourite.”

“Thanks,” he said, checking the list of available lorries and choosing one with refrigeration, just like Leighton would have done for the delivery.  “I actually just popped in to get my jacket and to sign out a van. I’ll be making Leighton’s run today,” he added, knowing she would be curious as to why he was suddenly going out on a delivery when he didn’t have to.

Out of the corner of his eye he watched Ruth put the mug and the napkin with the Danish down on his desk.  There were times when she could be rather lazy and would disappear God knew where, but ever since Gwen had left she’d taken it upon herself to look after him.  It drove him a bit batty at times, but Rhys honestly did appreciate it, even when the sight of that Danish made his gut roll slightly.

“Looks like I’m in the wrong job.”

Rhys turned to see Ianto come into the office just as Ruth was turning away from her errand at his desk.  He was wearing a sharp wool coat over a dark suit, and he was smiling as he entered, the expression aimed at Ruth who seemed a bit flustered by the fact that a handsome bloke was paying attention to her.

“We do have job vacancies,” she said, sounding just a bit breathless and giving Ianto a bright smile.

“Would I need a special license for trucking?” the dragon asked teasingly.

“Oh yes…but then you could go the distance.”

Rhys choked on air at the flirting. 

Ianto’s eyes were twinkling as he leaned forward and whispered something in Ruth’s ear.  Whatever it was it flustered her so badly she actually fluttered her hands and turned as red as a tomato.

Before he could say anything, his phone rang.  “It’s them,” he said, answering it.  “Yeah?”

_“You on the way?”_ a voice said, and honestly Rhys couldn’t tell which Harris it was.

“Getting the lorry now.”

_“Fine.  We’re ready when you get here.  Don’t mess about on us, or you’ll get the consequences.”_

Rhys didn’t even bother hiding the rolling of his eyes at the comment; it sounded like something out of a camp police show.  “No worries,” he reassured him.

Whoever it was hung up without saying another word.

Ruth was introducing herself to Ianto as he put the phone away.  Rhys signed his name on the sign-out sheet, grabbing the keys from their hook on the wall where all the keys were kept.  “You ready?”

Ianto looked at Rhys and nodded.  He turned back to Ruth.  “It was nice meeting you,” he said cordially. 

“Come back anytime,” Ruth practically gushed.  “We accept applications all the time.  I’m sure you’d be a perfect fit here.”

“I’m glad you think so,” he answered sincerely. 

Rhys grabbed his Harwood’s jacket, slipping it on over his button-down.  “Let’s get out of here,” he said gruffly, amused by it all.  He hadn’t expected Ianto to be such a flirt, but then he’d been around Harkness and figured the dragon had picked it up from him.

Together they headed out into the yard, toward the van Rhys had checked out.  “I’m not even gonna ask what you told Ruth to get her so aflutter.”

Ianto smirked.  “Don’t tell Jack I was flirting; he gets jealous.”

He didn’t look very worried about it, and Rhys just snorted at the comment.  “Like he has any right to, I’ve seen him in action that one time.”  While he’d more often spent time with Ianto – and it really wasn’t a lot of time at that – the once he’d been around Harkness after Gwen’s Retconning the man had been a slick operator.  He’d often wondered just how many phone numbers he’d gotten that night at the pub.

“That’s just Jack,” Ianto answered.  “If he ever stopped flirting I’d check him for alien possession.”

Rhys wondered what it would be like, to be in a relationship with someone who seemed to flirt with just about anyone, and then decided he really didn’t want to know.

They made it to the refrigerated lorry, Rhys climbing into the front seat.  The sound of the passenger door closing followed him as he fastened his safety belt and put the key in the ignition.  “So, where’s the others meeting us?”

“At the service station where the original pick up was made,” Ianto answered.  “We figured it would be the best place, since the team wouldn’t have to stay inside the refrigerated back of the lorry for all that long.”

That made sense, and reminded Rhys to cut on the unit in the back, so it would be cold enough when he reached the warehouse.  He didn’t want to raise suspicion by not having the back cooled down to the proper temperature.

He pulled out of the yard, and it was quiet for the first several minutes of the drive.  It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, which surprised him.  Rhys had the sudden urge to break it, because it wasn’t fair that he should be that way with someone he really didn’t know all that much about, besides him being a dragon and knowing some of Torchwood’s pretty important secrets.

“Why me?” he finally blurted out.

“What do you mean?” Ianto sounded confused.

“Why did you tell me all this about yourself and Torchwood on our first meeting, when you waited so long to tell Gwen?”

There was a pensive pause, and just when Rhys was going to risk taking his eyes from the road and look over at his passenger, he heard Ianto sigh. 

“That is an interesting question,” the dragon murmured.  “All I can say is that I trusted you almost immediately, whereas I didn’t feel that way toward Gwen.”

“But why?  What’s it about me that made you trust me?”  He was confused.  “I’m just a manager at a haulage company.  I just don’t get it.”

There was another silence.  “I know you said your grandmother told you stories about dragons.”

“Aye, she did.”

“Then you know my kind is closely connected to the Earth, and to the magic that is natural to this planet.”

Rhys nodded.  His Gran had been fond of telling him bedtime tales of dragons, and of magic, and the heroes of the Old Religion.  They’d stayed with him even into his adult life, and had led him to asking questions about his heritage from his Mam when he’d been old enough to appreciate the answers and had learned that his Great-Gran had been a true healer, with real magic; not the small conjurings he’d seen his Gran do. 

While he didn’t quite understand much of what he’d discovered, he’d certainly come to respect it.  And, if sometimes he lit candles for his family’s ancestors then no one really needed to know that, did they?

“When I was a child,” Ianto explained, “my mother was very fond of telling me to follow my heart, that I could see inside a soul and know if they could be trusted.  There was a time when I didn’t do that,” and he sighed again, the small sound full of sadness, “and it nearly lost me everything.  But, it really made me realise that my being able to see that sort of thing was a gift, and while I don’t have a great deal of magic this was something special to me.  You recall me saying something about a darkness within Gwen?”

Rhys thought back to that night, when he’d gotten too many answers to his questions and had seen just what his Gwen had become.  “I remember.  I asked my Mam about it, and she said what you did: that sometimes something touches a person and they don’t even know it.  It could be attached to the family, and get passed down; or else it could be a purposeful curse.”

“Had she seen it too?”

Rhys nodded once.  “Yeah.  Only she didn’t say anything because she knew how much I loved Gwen, and wasn’t willing to lose me over it.”  His Mam could see it, that Rhys might very well have left with Gwen if she’d said something against his girlfriend.  He’d been so in love with Gwen, but it had been obvious that Brenda Williams hadn’t been fond of her son’s choice in lover.

Now, he wished she had said something.  There might have been less heartache then.  And he had to be grateful to his Mam for not rubbing his face in it, because she’d have been within her right to do so.

“I’m not saying that the darkness isn’t in others,” Ianto hastened to add.  “There are some who go throughout their lives with such a taint and nothing happens.  But I’ve learned to avoid those people as much as I can, because in the end nothing good comes of carrying such darkness within your soul.”

It came to Rhys then just what his passenger was intimating.  “Are you saying I don’t have that sort of darkness, then?”

Ianto snorted.  “Well, there aren’t any perfect people, and everyone carries _something_ with them, but Gwen was _tainted_.  It’s very hard for me to explain without some sort of context, and in fact Jack thinks it’s all just instinct with me even though he rolls with it.  But you…you’re from a magical family, and you have a bit of magic in you…not enough that you could use, but it’s there nonetheless.”

Rhys was unbelievably proud to know that.

There was a sudden, pensive silence, and Rhys turned to regard his passenger.  Ianto was staring right at him, and Rhys felt very uncomfortable, so he faced front once more.  He could feel the weight of that stare, like the dragon was studying him or something.  He wanted to tell Ianto to stop it, but couldn’t get the words out.

“There are so many things you should know,” Ianto murmured.  “When this is over, we’ll need to have a long talk.”  He huffed a laugh.  “You and me…several pints…a karaoke machine...count on it.”

Rhys laughed at that.  “Don’t expect me to get up in front of a crowd of drunk Welshmen and sing, mate.”

“You haven’t lived until you’ve sung _Endless Love_ in front of the rugby crowd.”

“No bloody way!” Rhys exclaimed.  “You got a death wish or something?”

“No…just a mate who knows how much to give me to drink in order to make a complete arse out of myself.”

“You’re both insane!”

Ianto laughed.  “You’re not the first to have noticed that, actually.”

“It’s bleeding obvious, innit?”  Rhys couldn’t help but laugh as well.

A short silence filled the cab of the van, and Rhys could feel his nerves fade just a little.  He blamed that for the fact that he opened his mouth and said, “There was another reason for me going to that warehouse,” before he even know he’d spoken.

“You mean, besides the fact that you didn’t trust Torchwood to tell you what Leighton had been up to?” The question was soft, but for some strange reason Rhys got the impression that this wasn’t a surprise.

Still, he ploughed ahead.  “Yeah.  I went in there because of Gwen.”

Rhys could practically feel the confusion emanating from his passenger.  “I…I wasn’t expecting that,” the dragon answered slowly. 

“What…did you think it was because I had the urge to show off?”

Ianto barked out a laugh.  “Well, you and Jack are alike in a few ways, so yes…I could see that.”

He didn’t know whether to be insulted by that or not, and he certainly didn’t see it himself.

“So,” Ianto went on, “why do you think you went in there because of Gwen?”

Rhys sighed.  He really wished he hadn’t said anything, but then his brain did have a tendency to be on a delay when it came to his mouth.  After all, there was a reason he’d had the nickname ‘Rhys the Rant’ for so long.

“That night,” he began, “the night before you Retconned Gwen…she kept saying that she only wanted to protect me, like I couldn’t look after myself.  And then she really thought I wouldn’t be able to handle what Torchwood did…I guess, I guess I just wanted to prove her wrong.  Even though she’d never know it, I wanted to prove that I could handle it.  And, you know, I really didn’t handle it all that well.” He was embarrassed to admit it, but seeing that poor creature, being cut up like that…of course it had made him sick.  Anyone with a conscience couldn’t have reacted in any other way.

“Rhys.”  A warm hand rested on his shoulder.  “Personally, I think you did just fine.  What you saw in that warehouse was fantastic, and not a lot would have accepted it.  You kept your head, even though you saw something being tortured in front of you, and you came up with a way to get us inside and hopefully save that alien.”

“Yeah, but if I hadn’t gone in, this might be over and that creature in there wouldn’t be in pain anymore. Just because I had to prove to someone who would never know that I wasn’t the damsel in distress she seemed to think I was.”  Saying it out loud, it sounded horrible, and Rhys was ashamed of himself even though he hadn’t realised his motivation until he’d stood in front of the alien, its cloudy purple eye staring at him as if begging him to do something to rescue it…and all he’d been able to do was vomit.

“We don’t know that,” Ianto reassured him.  “We were actually heading into the warehouse when Patrick noticed you.  We would have gone in blind, but now we know what we’re dealing with and we’ve planned accordingly.”

He made it sound so logical, that Rhys hadn’t put his foot right into it, and a knot in his stomach that he hadn’t even known existed loosed.  He hadn’t slept well last night, worrying that he’d condemned that poor thing to even more pain because he’d gotten involved and had kept Torchwood from doing their job properly. 

“We’re here.”

Rhys blinked, seeing the service station coming up quickly.  He made the turn, pulling the lorry up behind the building, where the very familiar Torchwood SUV was parked.  The team was standing there, and Harkness began striding toward the van before Rhys had gotten it parked. 

He climbed down from the cab as Jack greeted him.  Rhys had to admit he couldn’t make up his mind whether that greatcoat the man wore made him look like a ponce or a hero, and left that particular thought alone.

The rest of the team gathered around the back of the refrigerated lorry, bundled up in jackets and coats.  “We all know the plan,” Harkness said as he, Rhys, and Ianto joined them.  “Deborah is back at the Hub, and she’ll be monitoring our communications.  If things go pear-shaped, she’ll be on the phone with Kathy and Andy and begging them to come and save our asses.”

“You know she’ll enjoy that,” Toshiko smirked.

It took Rhys a few seconds to realise who they were speaking about.  So, Gwen’s former partner also knew about Torchwood?  He wasn’t quite sure how to think about that, to be honest.  Andy was a nice enough bloke, even if Rhys hadn’t really gotten along with him.  He could admit to himself now that he was just a wee bit jealous of the time Gwen had spent with her partner, and looking back on it now it really hadn’t made a lot of sense.  But then, he now had proof that she’d been perfectly willing to cheat on him, so how could he know what might have happened if she’d remained with the police?

No, that was just borrowing more heartache, with the what-might-have-been’s.  He’ll never know any of that, since Torchwood had come into their lives.  And he was beginning to think this was a good thing.

Harkness had the back of the van thrown open, a wave of cold wafting from the interior.  “Everyone in.”

Patrick stopped just as he was getting into the back.  “Hey Jack…have you ever eaten alien meat?”

The captain looked vaguely surprised by the question.  “Yeah, sure I have.”

Something flitted across the man’s face that Rhys wasn’t sure what it was.  “And it was okay?”

“Well,” Harkness said, his lips curling upward into a sly smile, “he certainly seemed to think so.”

Rhys couldn’t help but groan, but he wasn’t alone; the rest of the team did the same, their comments ranging from, “Jesus Christ, Harkness!” to a snort of laughter from Ianto. 

Patrick put his face into his hand.  “I walked into that one, didn’t I?”

“You’ll learn,” Toshiko said, patting his arm in comfort.

“But until you do I’m gonna have so much fun,” Jack laughed.  “Get in the lorry.”

The team climbed in, Harkness helping as needed.  Once everyone was inside, he turned to Rhys.  “As soon as you can, get clear,” he told him.  “You’re going in unarmed and we don’t want to risk your life.  Got that?”

“Yeah, I got it,” Rhys agreed. 

Harkness gave him a short nod, and then proceeded to get up into the back of the van, Ianto and Patrick giving him a hand.  Rhys took one quick look inside, saw the team settling in, and closed and latched the door. 

Taking a deep breath, Rhys got back into the driver’s seat and pulled out, very much aware of the load he was currently carrying.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry about the delay getting this up, but every one of my muses seemed to completely desert me. I really haven't written much in weeks, until they seemed to come back. So, here is the next chapter. Thanks for your patience.

 

**_2 September 2008_ **

****

Rhys pulled the lorry up in front of the warehouse, his nerves nearly back in full force by the time he’d set the handbrake. 

The place looked as rundown as it had yesterday, but there now seemed to be a tangible sense of menace oozing from the metal and cinderblock walls like the blackest mould.   It didn’t help any that one of the large bay doors was open, resembling a gaping, toothless mouth, and that he could see directly into a section of the building that he hadn’t been in on his one and only visit.  There wasn’t anything there of interest that he could tell, except for a couple of guys and some pallets, as well as one rusty-looking wheeled cart, but it still seemed to add to the general darkness of the warehouse.

It made Rhys shiver, even as the door to the lorry’s cab was pulled open by one of the guys he’d seen when he’d been there before, although he didn’t know his name.  He barely kept himself from leaping out of his skin at the man’s sudden appearance.

To cover his discomfort, Rhys grabbed the clipboard with the paperwork on it, from where he’d laid it in the passenger seat.  He tried to smile, but wasn’t sure just how good a job he did.  “Hey, I need the boss to sign this,” he said, practically waving the clipboard at the bloke’s head.  “I don’t want any questions asked, see?” 

The man looked at him as if he was mad, and it was all Rhys could do not to laugh in his face.  Personally, Rhys kind of agreed with the guy, because who else but a madman would’ve driven up with a lorry full of special ops agents, with no sort of gun or anything hidden under his seat?  Okay, sure, he’d not wanted even a stun gun, using the excuse that his cover would’ve been blown if anyone caught sight of it – not that Harkness was likely to give him one, anyway.  Hell, Rhys was more likely to shoot himself in the foot than hit any other sort of target he actually aimed at, no matter what his inner wanna-be secret agent tried to tell him.

Finally, the man stopped staring at him like Rhys had a third head, to turn and go back into the warehouse.  Rhys was itching to check the back of the lorry, but there was still one more worker out in the yard outside the open bay door, and he didn’t dare make any overt moves that would give the game away.  After all, how was he supposed to explain five strangers in the back of the supposedly empty lorry?

Instead, before he could even stop himself, he’d whistled the man over.  “Couldn’t get us a cuppa?” he asked, hoping the smile was a bit easier this time.

It must have been, because the man didn’t even stare.  Instead, he nodded, dropping the bag he’d been carrying onto the ground and following the first bloke back into the warehouse.

Rhys let out the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.  That had been way too easy, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.  Jumping out of the cab, he made his way quickly round to the rear, wrenching the lever up and out of its housing with far more force than he really needed.  He tugged the door open…

To find the cold interior of the van empty.

Rhys was shocked to say the least.

How had they gotten out?  The only lock was on the outside, and it had been securely fastened; Rhys had made certain of that, not wanting the rear door to accidentally flop open on the drive over.  Just where had they left the bloody van, and when?  Yes, Rhys had been driving slowly down the service road, so conceivably they could have jumped out without hurting themselves. 

But how had they done it, with the door locked?

Rhys closed the rear door and reset the latch, and then made his way back to the cab.  As he did, he noticed that the side door to the back of the lorry seemed to be ajar, and he shook his head in disbelief as he realised just how the team had done it; that one did have a lock inside, just in case someone accidentally got shut in.  He pushed the door completely shut, securing it carefully.  He couldn’t help the true smile that crossed his face, before he made himself remember just where he was. 

“Where do you want my autograph?”

Rhys barely kept himself from jumping clean out of his skin; instead, he turned slowly, watching as Greg Harris approached.  Two other men came with him, peeling off to head round the back of the lorry. 

He reached back into the cab, snagging the clipboard.  “Right here, mate.”  He handed the paperwork over.

Harris took it, glancing over the form on it before using the biro stuck under the clip to scrawl his signature on the indicated line.  “Yeah, we don’t want any questions, do we?” he said, passing it back to Rhys.

“Exactly,” he answered, setting the clipboard onto the seat just behind him.  Rhys felt the nervousness fade just a little, and he thought, for the first time, that maybe they’d be able to pull this off, that Torchwood could get into the warehouse and stop these bastards from hurting that alien creature anymore.

He turned back, and Harris was holding out a wad of cash.  “Here’s your cut,” the man said.  “You can count it if you want.”

Rhys took the money, slipping it into his trouser pocket.  “Nah, mate.  I trust you.”  A part of him could see why Leighton would want to do this, to make a bit of extra dosh now that he and Jen had a baby, but he knew in good conscience that he wouldn’t be keeping this blood money.  There were plenty of charities in the area that could use it.

“When you get to the abattoir,” Greg said, “ask for Graham.  Him and the boys clean it up and process it.” 

“Got it.”  Rhys now knew the name of the contact at the abattoir, and he’d let Harkness know as soon as all this was done and the bad guys dusted. 

He really wished he knew what was going on inside.  What was the team up to?  Were they cleaning up as he was out there, speaking with Greg Harris?  Obviously if they’d been seen, the alarm would have sounded, right?

Harris waved a hand, and two guys came from the warehouse, one pushing a cart.  Rhys could see square packages on it wrapped in paper, and he knew without looking inside that this was the meat they’d hacked off that poor creature inside, and he really had to swallow hard to keep from hurling all over the pavement.  He could hear the back of the lorry open, and could feel a faint vibration through his back where he was leaning against the side, and he knew the meat was being tossed into the refrigerated interior.

It was a good thing that, at that moment, the bloke he’d asked for tea from came back out, holding a Styrofoam cup.  He mumbled something that Rhys didn’t quite catch, and handed over the cup.  “Thanks,” he said, taking a sip.  It wasn’t sweet enough, but it helped keep the urge to vomit at a lower level.

Rhys really wished he could have had one of those small communicator thingies that Torchwood used to talk with each other, because he desperately wanted to know what was going on.  But the longer things went, the chances were that no one knew what was going on, right?  It would have been like that saying, ‘no news is good news’; as long as the alarm wasn’t raised, everything was fine. 

Dale Harris came out of the warehouse just as the guy who apparently worked with the drugs that kept the creature sedated rolled up on a bright yellow bicycle, and Rhys wanted to laugh at the incongruity of it all.  Instead, he took another sip of his rapidly cooling tea to keep it in.

“Oi!” Dale exclaimed, sounding angry.  “Where have you been?  That infection was due ten minutes ago!”

Rhys couldn’t help the flinch at that; it meant that they were cutting into that poor beast without anything to at least dull the pain. 

Luckily no one seemed to notice his reaction; both Harris brothers were staring at the other man, who visibly cringed under the scrutiny.

“I needed to get more ketamine,” he said defensively.  “I’ve had to up the dose, Dale!  The thing’s in agony, man!”

Dale rolled his eyes.  “It’s just _meat_ ,” he scoffed.  “It can’t feel anything.”

Rhys was really glad he hadn’t eaten that Danish that Ruth had brought in, because that would have come back up in a really spectacular fashion at Harris’ cavalier attitude toward what they were doing.

“Get inside and play nurse if you’re so bothered,” Dale went on dismissively.  “We got work to do.”

“Right,” the guy said, darting into the building, letting his bicycle lean against the warehouse wall. 

Dale shook his head, turning to look at his brother.  “He’s getting soft.  We might want to think about replacing him.”

“Might not be a bad idea,” Greg answered, nodding.  He made his way around the back, and Rhys could hear him yelling at the two workers there.  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!  Hang on!”  There was a pause.  “There’s only twelve packages in here!  There’s supposed to be three more!  Come on…hurry up!”

Rhys felt his heart beat a little faster.  Damnit, he’d been hoping to drive out of there!  Now there was this delay, and he knew the longer he stayed, the more chance there was that these bastards would figure out there was someone infiltrating that warehouse and really, he had no desire to be there when the shit hit the fan.

Unless, of course, Torchwood could get everything under control before tipping off the bad guys that they were there. 

He looked at his watch.  He’d already been sitting there for about fifteen minutes, and his nerves were really beginning to get to him again.  Just how long did it take to take down a criminal enterprise responsible for selling dodgy alien meat and torturing an alien in the process?  In all the movies he’d seen, it seemed to be really quick; the good guys would go in, shoot the hell out of the bad guys, and rescue the damsel in distress.

Well, if the damsel was a hundred-foot beastie being hacked to pieces…

“I really should be getting off,” Rhys said, his nerves causing him to open his mouth when he really should have kept it shut.  He turned toward the door of the lorry.  “I’ve got jobs backing up, see?”

“They’ll just have to wait, won’t they?”  Dale said, a smirk in his voice

Yeah, he really should have not said a thing. 

Rhys removed his hand from the door handle, turning around to look at Dale.  He hadn’t been wrong about the smirk.  It was all he could do not to punch him in his stupid, smirking face.

The radio in Dale’s hand squawked, and Rhys barely had enough time to register the words, _“There are people in the building,”_ before something hit him in the face…hard.

Rhys went down, his vision darkening and then slamming back into focus, only to find the barrel of a gun so close to his face that he felt cross-eyed.

“You wanna mess with me?” Dale snarled, his face red with fury.

“What the hell?” Greg demanded, giving his brother a look that plainly said he was questioning his sanity.

“We got people in the warehouse,” Dale answered, thumbing back the trigger on the gun.  At least, Rhys thought it was the trigger.  It looked like it anyway, as far as he could tell.

“Shit,” Greg swore. 

“Yeah,” Dale spat.  He shoved the gun a little closer to Rhys’ face, and Rhys wasn’t ashamed to admit he wanted to freak out.  “You think you can double-cross us, huh?”

The only thing that Rhys could think to do was lie, because if he could buy more time for Torchwood to get its arse in gear then that poor creature in there might actually stand a chance.  “What the fuck are you on?” he demanded, letting that old “Rhys the Rant” personality come to the fore.  Sure, his arse was sore and his hands were scratched from the cement under his palms and he could taste blood in his mouth, but there was no way he was gonna go down without at least doing his best to fuck them all up.  “I’m here cause Leighton told me this was how he was getting his extra cash.  I’m a lorry driver, you twat!  Why the hell would I double-cross you lot?”

“For the cash cow!” Dale growled.  “We’re getting rich as kings selling that meat, and why would you want to just get a cut when you could have the whole thing?”

Rhys rolled his eyes.  “Yeah, and that makes sense.  Why’d you even think I’d want to take over?  You’re the ones with the connections and the operation!  And if you cared so much about your precious cash cow you’d be stopping whoever is actually in the bloody warehouse trying to muscle in on your shit!”

Greg was looking uncertain, but Dale’s eyes were glazed and Rhys was now just furious enough to want to piss him off more.  That small voice that always kept being logical while he was in full rant mode was jabbering at him to shut the hell up and Rhys didn’t give a rat’s arse.   If he was gonna get shot and killed then by God he was going to it while ranting with his very last breath.

“He’s right,” Greg said, grabbing his more-psychotic brother by the shoulder.  “We need to get in there and stop whoever’s poking around.”

Dale shrugged off the hand, not saying anything.  Instead, he practically yanked Rhys to his feet while planting the muzzle of the gun right into Rhys’ kidney.  “I don’t trust you,” he snarled.  “You’re coming with us.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rhys agreed.  He really didn’t have much of a choice.  He was pretty certain he wouldn’t live through a gunshot to the abdomen.  Well, as much as a lifetime of movies and telly could make him.

Dale’s fist in his jacket dragging him forward, Rhys stumbled into the warehouse.  He’d hoped never to set foot inside again, but that had been blown out of the water by Torchwood getting rumbled.  He could feel the barrel of the gun poking into his side, and Rhys really didn’t want to get shot.  He’d really like to get home after this is done, curl up on the sofa that he and Gwen used to share, and watch a bit of ‘Wife Swap’ before collapsing into bed.

The thing was though, he realised as he was bodily yanked through the grimy hallways, it was really about that poor thing in the warehouse being tortured and cut open just because a pair of council toughs had lucked into finding it before Torchwood could and figuring out what they could do to use it in order to make money.  Rhys wasn’t a spy or anything like that, but he did care.  He cared that an alien was in danger; he cared that Torchwood was somewhere in the building, doing their best to save it.  That there were people in the world who were determined to do the right thing and were willing to put their lives on the line to do just that.

Rhys was just honoured to be able to help, if just a little bit.

The three of them turned a corner, and Rhys had the opportunity to actually see Ianto Jones in action.

The dragon-in-man form was striding toward them, and every time someone tried to stop him he rammed what had to have been his stun gun into a vulnerable part of anatomy and pulled the trigger.  Rhys could make out a couple of other men laid out behind the rampaging Ianto, and he wanted to grin like a maniac to see it. 

Dale Harris’ gun boring a hole in his side, Rhys was yanked forward and into Ianto’s path.  He got a look at the expression of sheer rage on the dragon’s human face, and shivered.  He wouldn’t want to get in the way of Ianto Jones on a mission, because it was just plain scary. 

However, Rhys didn’t need to worry about that.  Ianto caught sight of them, and stopped in his tracks.  There wasn’t anyone still conscious in the hallway; every single man who’d tried to stop him had been taken out.  He wanted to yell at Ianto and tell him to keep going, to take down the Harris brothers and make sure they couldn’t do any more damage. 

But the presence of the gun suddenly gouging into the skin of his temple was a deterrent to Rhys doing anything of the sort.

“Stop right there,” Dale demanded, and Rhys was certain he was going to have a really ugly bruise on his head from that gun barrel.  “I’ll kill your man here, don’t doubt that!”

“You got it wrong, mate,” Rhys denied.  “I don’t know this guy at all.”

Ianto’s eyes flickered to Rhys, and then back to Dale Harris.  “I’m not here with him,” the dragon said, seeming to go along with Rhys’ story, “but I’m not going to risk you shooting some innocent bystander because you think it’ll get you want you want.”  He held his hands up, letting the plastic ray gun-looking stun gun dangle from his finger by its trigger guard. 

Rhys wanted to rant at him for being an idiot.

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

**_2 September 2008_ **

****

“You think you could take us all down by yourself?” Dale taunted as the other Harris brother searched Ianto, tucking the stun gun into the waistband of his jeans.  Rhys didn’t move, more watching Ianto than paying any attention to the ever-present gun digging into his head. 

The dragon stood there and let Greg frisk him, his hands held up.  His eyes were sharp as he stared Dale down, and Rhys knew the guy had to be at least some form of bat-shit crazy to not react to Ianto’s gaze, because it sure was freaking Rhys out and it wasn’t even aimed in his direction. 

“I was doing a pretty good job until you decided to take a hostage,” Ianto pointed out as Greg stood back.  He waved a hand negligently toward the several unconscious men scattered along the hallway. 

Greg pulled something from Ianto’s inside coat pocket; it was a small wallet, and the look on the older Harris’ face when he opened it was priceless even though Rhys had no idea what it really was.

He didn’t have long to wait, because Greg exclaimed, “He’s a bloody copper!”

Ianto shrugged gracefully, and just a wee bit smugly. 

Rhys kind of admired that sort of nonchalance, even as he was wondering who was responsible for making up Torchwood’s fake I.D.’s because Ianto Jones was certainly no cop.  He’d yet to see one dressed that fancy.

Dale promptly aimed his gun in Ianto’s direction.  “What the fuck do you want?”

Ianto rolled his eyes.  “Honestly, you think you’re that slick?  We’ve been investigating you for a while now, and we’ve just got the evidence we need to take your organisation down.”

“Where’s your fucking warrant then?” Greg demanded.

“My supervisor has it.  You don’t think I’m the only one here, do you?” Ianto folded his arms over his chest, acting as if he didn’t give a shit that a gun was pointing in his direction.  Rhys was comfortable enough in his own sexuality to admit to himself that he thought it was pretty damned hot.   “We’ve been investigating the shoddy meat for a couple of weeks now.  The wrecked lorry was just confirmation that something big was going on.”

“I thought you burned all the meat?” Dale growled, the gun gouging back into Rhys’ temple.

“Oh, he thought he did,” Ianto answered, one side of his mouth curled up into a smirk.  “But he didn’t get to the accident scene first.”

“How many are there?” Dale swung the gun right back in Ianto’s direction.

Rhys glanced at the dragon, who was looking incredibly relaxed with the wildly waving gun.  Both Dale and Greg were focussed on Ianto, and Rhys decided he was tired of being the bloody hostage.

He rammed his elbow sharply into Dale Harris’ side.

Ianto must have guessed he was going to try something, because he was slamming a mean right hook into Greg’s face even as Dale was doubling over and gasping for air.  Greg went down hard, and Ianto was darting forward although Dale had managed to unfold himself and fire his gun.

Rhys’ heart seemed to stop as Ianto was slammed backward by the bullet.

However, instead of falling to the ground, the dragon simply straightened back up, whooping in a large gulp of air.  The smile on his face was one of the scariest things Rhys had ever seen and hoped never to see again and his eyes had changed into those slitted-pupil ones that he had when he was in his dragon shape.

Dale was backing away.  “What the fuck are you?” he shrieked.  Rhys compared the sound to a little kid screaming because his folks had taken a favourite toy away.

He fired again.

Obviously he hadn’t learned from the first shot, because all it did was make Ianto even more pissed off.

“I liked this shirt,” the dragon snarled.  He took the last several steps toward Dale before the man could even react, and then slapped the gun from his shocked grasp.  A single punch laid him out on the floor just like his brother.

Rhys couldn’t help but stare.  There were two streaks of blood on Ianto’s shirt, but he was acting like it wasn’t any big deal to get shot twice at close range.  How was he still standing, let alone taking out bad guys?

“We thought you’d be gone by now,” Ianto said calmly, as if he hadn’t just been taken two bullets to the chest.

It took Rhys’ brain a few seconds to kick in and for him to be able to comment, “Yeah, well, I would have been but someone here can’t count, and then Dale,” he kicked the still body near his feet, “got word on his walkie-talkie that someone was in the warehouse so he just assumed I was involved.  Nice punch, by the way.”

“Thank you,” Ianto answered politely, pulling some zip ties from an inside pocket of his coat and proceeding to restrain both Harris brothers.

“Do you always carry fake warrant cards around with you?” Rhys asked curiously.

The dragon finished and then stood.  “No, but Jack felt these bastards would be more scared of the constabulary than of Torchwood.”

That made sense. Sure, Torchwood wasn’t all that big a secret but the average person had no real idea what it actually did.  “What’s gonna happen to them?”

“We’ll turn them over to the coppers,” Ianto replied.  “Tampering with the local food supply is an act of domestic terrorism, and if any of them go on about some strange creature they were harvesting for meat…well, who’s going to believe a story like that?”

Rhys nodded, but asked, “What about wiping their memories?  I thought that was something Torchwood did?”

Ianto grinned that grin Rhys didn’t much like.  “Forgetting what they’ve done is really too good for them, we all believe.”

Yep, Rhys believed that, too.  “So, what next?”

“Let me find out.”  Ianto reached up to his ear.  “Jack, my section is clear and I have Rhys with me…yes, but he’ll explain…”

“Yeah, thanks for that,” Rhys muttered sarcastically.

Ianto rolled his eyes at the comment, listening to whatever Harkness was telling him at the other end of his comm.  “Alright, on my way.”  He touched his ear once more.  “I need to go fetch the SUV,” he said.  “Jack wants you to come on into the main part of the warehouse.  Owen has the poor creature sedated and we’re going to need some equipment before we can transport it out of here.  Oh, and would you mind?” He handed Rhys a bunch of the plastic zip ties.  “I managed to stun everyone I met, but I didn’t take time to secure them.”

Rhys accepted the ties.  “Sure, no problem.”

“Thanks.”  Ianto stooped and picked up the stun gun Greg Harris had taken from him.  He also gave it to Rhys.  “Don’t hesitate to use it if you need to.”

Rhys took the weapon, staring at it uncertainly.  It was obvious how it worked, but he knew he’d be dead awful with it.  He tucked it into his jacket pocket.  “How are you lot gonna get that poor thing out of here?”  He couldn’t imagine it; the beast was enormous, and Rhys doubted that Harwood’s even had an open-bed lorry big enough to move it.

Ianto smirked.  “I’ll let Jack explain.  I need to get moving before Detective Inspector Swanson and her troops show up.  She’ll be able to accept the space whale, but her boys…not so much.”  Then he paused.  “Well, Davidson would too, actually.  But let’s not stress out the working coppers any more than we need to, shall we?”

Ianto clapped him on the shoulder then walked past and toward the way Rhys had been brought in.  Rhys turned and watched, shaking his head and wondering just how he was gonna get back to the SUV…then he felt like slapping himself on the forehead.  The guy was a dragon, after all, and had wings.

Rhys then headed down the hallway, stopping at each unconscious body and using the zip ties to fasten their hands behind them.

He found it somewhat therapeutic, to be honest.

It was fairly simple to find the large storage area where the alien was being kept…Rhys simply followed the trail of unconscious bodies until the hallway opened up and he was facing the enormous form of the creature, its eyes closed and looking more at peace than the last time Rhys had seen it.

The rest of the Torchwood team was in the room, working around the alien.  Patrick and Toshiko were busily tying up various bodies lying on the concrete floor, while Harkness and Harper were standing together next to the sleeping creature, heads close and speaking quietly.  Harkness glanced up as Rhys approached, and there was an impressed expression on his face for a few seconds until it morphed into something that was vaguely unhappy.  “What the hell are you still doing here?” he demanded, stepping away from Harper.

Rhys didn’t even bother trying to hide the eye rolling.  “Yeah, cause these guys are idiots and couldn’t keep the proper count of what was supposed to be shipped out.  And then of course one of you lot was seen, so I lied through my teeth and denied everything; not that that actually worked since Dale Harris is a paranoid twat with a gun fetish.”

Harkness’ eyes widened slightly in surprise, and he laughed.  “You do surprise me, Rhys Williams.”

Well, sometimes Rhys surprised himself, if he was being completely honest there.

“Is he taken care of?” Harkness asked.

Rhys nodded.  “By your bad arse dragon who, by the way, took two bullets and didn’t even flinch.  Nearly gave me a heart attack, that did.”

Harkness lost the grin he’d been wearing.  “He was shot?”

Oh shit…maybe he should have left out that part?  “Yeah, but he just kept on rolling.  I swear, it was pretty damned awesome…well crap, did I just use the word, ‘awesome’?”  He felt he should be a bit embarrassed by that, but it was stating the simple truth.

“Owen!” Harkness shouted. 

The doctor came over.  “I was standing just a few feet away, Harkness.  You didn’t have to scream the place down.”

“Ianto was shot.”  He looked worried, and yeah…Rhys should have probably kept that bit of information to himself and let Ianto deal with it when he got back.

Harper went from pissed off to serious so quick it should have given the man emotional whiplash.  “He’s obviously fine, Jack.  You, better than the rest of us, know how tough Dragon Boy is.  It’ll take more than a handgun to do any damage to that tough hide.”

“Um,” Rhys thought a change of subject was a good idea, “just how are you planning on getting the alien out of here?  And where are you gonna take it?”

“The tests I ran,” Harper said, “indicated this poor thing was used to a saltwater environment.  We really don’t have a way to send it back where it came from, but the Earth’s oceans are pretty damned big so it should be able to hide just fine.”

“We can’t just dump it though,” Patrick said from behind Rhys, nearly making him jump.  He hadn’t heard the American walk up.  “With that wound in its side, putting it directly into salt water would be…well, it would really hurt like a bitch.”

“Luckily for us,” Toshiko added, but this time Rhys was ready for someone sneaking up on him, “Torchwood has a dock where we used to park our submarine –“

“You had a submarine?” Rhys practically squeaked. 

“Yes,” Harkness replied, “but that’s not important.  What is, is that the area is hidden well enough and is large enough to host our guest until we can get that wound in its side healed up.  We can release it directly into the bay when it’s ready to leave.”

“But that doesn’t explain how you’re gonna get it there,” Rhys pointed out.  “It’s not like you can hide something like that in the boot of your fancy SUV.”

“That’s where this comes in.”  Harkness pulled up the cuff of his poncy greatcoat to reveal that fancy-looking leather wrist band that Rhys had noticed before, and knew wasn’t a watch because the man already was wearing one on the opposite arm.  “This is a Vortex Manipulator, which means it’s just a fancy sort of teleport.  Now usually it only has enough power for one, maybe two people – I once had to teleport three, and that was _not_ fun – but our lovely Toshiko has come up with a way to boost its power for one trip.”

“It’ll most likely burn out,” Toshiko said, “but Jack thinks this is worth it.  We just had to make up a temporary battery, which we charged up using the Rift…”

The light came on.  “And this is why Ianto had to go and get the SUV, right?  For your equipment?”

“Got it in one, Rhys,” Harkness congratulated.  “If we can get this poor thing to a safe place then we can get it fixed up enough to set free.”

“Shouldn’t take long,” Harper added, “with its rate of regeneration.  Maybe a week at most.  But I can also get samples from it, which we hope might eventually lead to advances in medicine and other fields.”  He rubbed the back of his neck, looking almost sheepish.  “I don’t want to do anything invasive.  That creature’s suffered enough.”

Rhys glanced over at the sleeping alien, and a weight lifted from his chest knowing that they weren’t going to have to kill it.  That Torchwood was willing to do anything to help it to survive and be set free. 

He honestly hadn’t been sure what to expect, now that it came down to it.  Sure, he’d gone to Torchwood for help, but he hadn’t been able to come up with a way to save it.  Rhys had thought that a mercy killing would have been the only thing they’d be able to do once they’d stopped the Harrises and their accomplices from butchering it. 

But Torchwood had surprised him.  Hell, it had surprised him in almost every way.  Rhys had taken some of what Gwen had said about the team to heart: that they didn’t remember what it was like to be human, that being down in that cave of theirs had somehow made them less empathic to ordinary people.  However, that was obviously not true from what he’d seen.  He wondered just how Gwen could have missed it.  Had she been so twisted up in her own expectations of Torchwood – of Ianto Jones in particular – that she’d completely disregarded the truth in front of her? 

He’d gone into this wanting to prove Gwen wrong about him, even if he hadn’t realised that at the time.  Rhys had _needed_ to know the truth about himself, and not what Gwen had thought of him.  Not only had she been blind to what was really going on within Torchwood itself but she’d dismissed him as well, and what he was capable of.

Rhys took a step back, watching the Torchwood team as they prepared to move their newest ‘member’ to this hidden dock.  Ianto came back in a few minutes later, lugging two suitcase-sized metal boxes, loops of wire over his shoulder, and he and Toshiko set about hooking the so-called batteries together.  They were interrupted by Harkness, who immediately went to check on the dragon, pulling his coat open and unbuttoning the bloody shirt, all the time Ianto kept saying that he was fine and trying to shrug him off.  Once Harkness saw that for himself he stepped back and let them work, removing the leather wrist strap and handing it over to a working Toshiko who accepted it with a smile. 

Harper was busily examining the gaping wound in the creature’s side, and Rhys could tell he was muttering to himself as he worked, latex gloves spattered with blood.  The doctor might have slept with Gwen, but Rhys knew it took two to have an affair, and watching him work to help the alien whale made Rhys forgive him, just a little.  It might take some time, but he could see himself letting the affair go on Harper’s part.  Gwen…Rhys still wasn’t so sure about, but then he really didn’t have to, did he?  She was gone, moved on from him, and they wouldn’t be getting back together.

Patrick stepped back, joining Rhys in his watching the scene.  “Well, I feel useless,” the man said.  “I’m all about the explosions, not the clean-up.”

Rhys snorted.  “No, mate…if that were all you were good for, I doubt you’d be in Torchwood.”  He really didn’t know the American, but he’d noticed all along that there was something different about him, something that put him firmly into this team that was trying so hard to save a stranded alien that had been tortured by twisted human bastards just because it had ended up in the wrong place.

“And what about you?” Patrick asked.  “Why aren’t you in Torchwood?”

He opened his mouth to say that he wasn’t Torchwood material, that he wouldn’t fit in with what the team did, but he couldn’t.  That would have been Gwen speaking, and if there was one thing he’d learned over the last couple of days was that his former fiancée had been wrong about a lot of things. 

Patrick was regarding him closely, as if he was trying to read his mind or something.  Rhys knew he had to say something, but there wasn’t really anything he _could_ say.  He had no real answer for the other man, except for the obvious one…

“Well, they never asked me, have they?”

 

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, the end to this story. I'm glad you all enjoyed it! I am going to be starting on the next story, which...won't be the Dragon-Verse version of "Adam". I am actually going to be taking a story out of order, because it fits here much better, so stay tuned for that one. Thanks to everyone for reading!

 

**_4 September 2008_ **

****

Rhys made his way into his local pub, his eyes scanning the lunch crowd that was gathering for Ianto.  The dragon had contacted him last night, asking him to meet at the pub for a ‘discussion’.  Considering it had been two days since the alien had been rescued, Rhys figured he was pretty safe from Retcon at least; not that he honestly thought Harkness would order it.  He hadn’t back when Gwen had left, which really would have been the best time to do it; make him forget about everything that’s he’d been told about Torchwood ever since they’d ‘retired’ Gwen. 

Ianto wasn’t the only one in the rear booth, waiting; Harkness was also there, his arm thrown across the back of the bench seat, practically sprawling against the corner.  Ianto was leaning slightly against him, but straightened as his eyes met Rhys’ as he approached.  The dragon nodded toward the bar, and Rhys made a detour, figuring that meant they hadn’t ordered for him.  He motioned toward the keep, asked for coffee and the shepherd’s pie, and then took his mug to join the two Torchwood leaders in their booth.

“No beer?” Ianto asked, his eyes glittering with laughter. 

Rhys chuckled, recalling the first time they’d ever met and how he’d complained about the waste of a good beer by putting Retcon in it.  “Got a run out to Porthcawl this afternoon and I’d rather not go back to the office with alcohol on my breath.  Mister Harwood’s being a hard arse on lunchtime drinking since Leighton…even though the accident was determined not to be his fault.”

“Can’t blame him,” Harkness replied, taking a sip of the tall glass of water in front of him. 

“Nope,” Rhys agreed.  He took a sip of his coffee; it tasted slightly burnt, but at least it was caffeine. 

The last couple of days had been a bit crazy, to say the least.  After the Harris brothers had been taken into custody, Rhys had received a visit at the office from Detective Inspector Swanson and Gwen’s old partner, Andy Davidson, who’d been promoted to detective constable.  Rhys hadn’t been surprised at it, since he’d realised pretty early on that while a bit too earnest for anyone’s good, Davidson had a decent head on his shoulders and would most likely go far in the police. 

He had expected the visit.  Ianto had informed him it would happen, so Torchwood could cover Rhys’ involvement in what had become a media shitstorm practically within hours of them saving the creature in that warehouse.  The story had broken all over Wales about the attempted tampering of Cardiff’s food supply, and while Rhys’ name hadn’t been mentioned, Ianto had been afraid that somehow word would get back to Harwood’s that he’d been into it up to his neck.  So, with cover story in hand, he’d played out a little act with Swanson and Davidson – who were both in on the real happenings, since they were tied to Torchwood – and Rhys had gotten a commendation from Mr Harwood and Ruth’s mothering of him had proceeded to reach epic proportions. 

Rhys had gotten pretty uncomfortable with it in record time.

Still, it had been hectic, and to be honest Rhys was glad to get away from the yard for a bit.  The trip out to Porthcawl was also in a way of a good thing, and he was actually looking forward to it; getting away from the office, by himself and just driving with the radio on.  Maybe if he was lucky, he’d hear the Harwood’s jingle again.

Yeah, that never got old.

“How’s the alien?” he asked.

Ianto smiled.  “It’s recovering quickly.  Once it realised we weren’t there to hurt it, we were able to keep it awake for longer periods of time.  The wound is healing faster than Owen had thought it would, and we anticipate being able to set it free next week.”

“Ianto likes to sing to it,” Harkness grinned, bumping the dragon’s shoulder with his own.

“And it sings back,” Ianto answered, sounding exasperated but looking fond.  “It’s a different sort of music I’m used to, but it’s so beautiful…it echoes up through the Hub and it’s just…peaceful.  I’m going to miss it when it leaves.”

His expression turned wistful, and once again Rhys questioned why Gwen had been so sure these people – and this dragon – had lost their humanity.  They’d saved an alien whale from torture and were nursing it back to health…if they’d really been all that cold and cruel, they would have killed the thing without being concerned about it at all.

Hell, they would have gone in that first time, not caring that Rhys had stepped into a hornets’ nest in the misguided quest to clear his friend’s name.

“Can I be there when you let it loose?” he asked.  “It’s just…” he felt his face get a little hot, “I was there, you know?  I saw it when they were hurting it and I feel…” He really couldn’t put a name to it.

“Invested?” Harkness suggested.

Rhys smiled.  “Yeah, that’s it exactly.”

“Rhys Williams,” the dragon said softly.  “You have a good heart.”

A warm feeling fanned out through his chest, and Rhys felt a bit embarrassed at the praise.  “Nah, I’m just a regular bloke who got in above his head.”

“No,” Harkness denied.  “You’re much more than that.”

“In fact,” Ianto added, “we’re a bit ashamed that we didn’t quite realise it sooner.”

“Which is why we’d like to officially offer you a place on our team,” Harkness continued.

Rhys sat back, stunned.  No way was this happening!

He was kept from saying anything that he might have regretted by the sound of Ianto’s last name being shouted out from the bar.  The dragon got up.  “Be right back,” he said, weaving his way through the lunch crowd.

“Something tells me you’re about to refuse,” Harkness said shrewdly.

“Are you a bloody mind reader, then?” Rhys huffed, covering his sudden discomfort by taking a drink of his coffee.

“No, but I’m pretty sure a guy like you wouldn’t think of himself as worthy of the position.”  He leaned forward.  “But I want you to seriously consider this question:  do you honestly see yourself working at Harwood’s ten, or even five, years down the road?”

Rhys opened his mouth to say, _‘Yeah, of course,’_ but he closed it as it occurred to him that, right in that moment, that he really couldn’t. 

Sure, this time a couple of years ago, things had been different.  He’d had Gwen.  They’d been thinking of marriage, of family.  Of getting a larger flat, or even a house somewhere with a nice garden and in a quiet neighbourhood.  Gwen’s police salary had been slightly larger than Rhys’ at Harwood’s, and so he’d applied for the manager position…which he’d gotten quite handily, thanks to his logistical knowledge.

Gwen’s Torchwood salary had been nearly three times what he’d been making when she’d gotten hired by Harkness.  It had made planning easier, had allowed Rhys to save his own money in order to buy the ring that Gwen had worn for such a short time…and that was now returned to its box, stuffed toward the back of his sock drawer.  Rhys had been perfectly happy with what he’d had then, even if he’d had no idea just what the love of his life was up to.  He could have kept working at Harwood’s for as long as he’d needed, and be completely content with it. 

But now…he was still at the same job, and he’d completely lost that sense of contentment that he’d had for so long.  Part of that was Gwen’s leaving…a really large part.  Rhys knew he would always love her, and he’d miss her terribly, but that was now over.  The loss of her memory had made her rethink her priorities, and Rhys Williams was no longer on that list.  She’d done her best to explain it to him but in the end Rhys hadn’t really understood her reasons for leaving, and yet he let her go, mourning the woman he’d met at University, who’d agreed without hesitation to go on that first date with him, much to Rhys’ shocked joy.

Rhys thought about his office there at Harwood’s; of Ruth, who might not have been the best secretary in the world, but who at least cared; of the lads he worked with, and played footie with on the weekend.  It was his life, and all it had taken was a lorry crash and a tortured alien to question it all.

He’d been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t even noticed that Ianto had returned with their lunches.  Rhys’ shepherd’s pie was steaming in front of him, and his lunch companions were busy eating, even if they were watching him wrestle with his thoughts.

He ate mechanically, ruminating on everything that he’d seen in the last several days and comparing it to his life so far.  Sure, he’d been one for a quiet time of it, with his girl and his job and as near a perfect family life as possible. 

All of that had been stripped away.  And, the worst part of it was, Rhys found himself not caring all that much. 

Or maybe that was the best part.

“If I decide to accept,” Rhys said, putting his fork down and looking at each of his potential bosses, “what exactly would I be doing?  I’m not one of your special ops secret agents, and the only time I’ve ever seen a gun was on telly.  I’m a manager in a haulage firm.  What can I offer Torchwood?”

Ianto and Harkness glanced at each other.  Harkness put his sandwich down, leaning back in the booth as his sharp eyes met Rhys’.  “Rhys Williams, you are seriously underestimating yourself.  First of all, let’s talk about how easily you accepted everything you learned about our team, just before we had to Retcon Gwen.  Ianto told me about your sense of wonder over his true form, and how willing you were to believe that there was a real, live dragon living in Cardiff.  A lot of truths were handed to you that day, and you didn’t overly freak out or run away.  That, in and of itself, is pretty damned impressive.”

“My Gran was fond of stories about magic and dragons,” Rhys answered, feeling his cheeks warm a little at the praise.  “I was kinda primed, really.”

“Maybe so,” Ianto conceded, “but that doesn’t discount the fact that you were able to use your knowledge to find that warehouse where our alien was being kept, and you managed to find an ‘in’ with the Harris gang.”

“Yeah, but I told you why I did it,” Rhys argued. 

“Yes, because you wanted to prove Gwen wrong in her opinion of how you’d handle Torchwood,” the dragon said.  “Even though she’d never know…just for you to know was enough.  But, you also wanted to save that poor creature just as much as we did.  You felt compassion for something you didn’t understand, just because it was suffering.”

“I wonder if Gwen would have felt the same,” Harkness murmured.

“We’ll never know,” Ianto replied, resting his hand on the one Harkness had lain on the table top.  “Maybe she would have, or maybe not.  It doesn’t really matter, because we’re not really taking Gwen into consideration here…it’s all about Rhys, and what he can offer Torchwood.”

Harkness squeezed Ianto’s hand, and then let his eyes fall back onto Rhys.  “You have a good head on your shoulders, and a grasp of logistics that I think we need.  Sure, you might not have a lot of skills we look for but, if we’re going to bring Gwen into this, neither did she when I hired her.  Much of that can be taught, and you never know exactly what you’re going to realise that you already know yourself until we bring it up.  You’re open-minded, but not so much that you’re easily led.”  Then he shrugged.  “And Ianto trusts you…which is a really big bonus in my book.”

Rhys glanced toward the dragon, and Ianto nodded, confirming Harkness’ words.  He really had no idea what he’d done to earn that trust, but he knew he’d never take it for granted.

“Right now, Ianto does a lot around the Hub that he really doesn’t need to be doing, and we’re thinking you might fit some of those duties.  Mostly keeping us supplied, arranging maintenance on our vehicle, such things like that.”  Harkness smirked.  “What we didn’t realise when we hired Patrick, was that Ianto would gain several more alphabet agencies to his rolodex, ones that we didn’t anticipate having.”

Ianto snorted.  “Like I don’t have enough agencies to liaise with.”

“How did that happen then?”  Rhys was curious.  Patrick had seemed an alright bloke, and he couldn’t work out how the American would have made more work for Ianto like that.

“Patrick’s family,” the dragon answered.  “He has more spies and coppers and secret agents in his family tree than anyone has the right to have.  And of course they now know about Torchwood, which means they’re politely requesting information and a liaison.  That would be me.”

“And eventually, we’ll get you trained up as a field agent,” Harkness said.

“Which means you’ll get to learn how to use a gun,” Ianto added, which caused Rhys to laugh. 

“Also,” Harkness went on, “there’s something else you might want to know, even if you decide you don’t want to come work for us.”  He leaned forward, both elbows on the table, and the expression on his face made Rhys want to sit up and pay attention.  “You aren’t the first person in your family who’s come across Torchwood in their lives.”

Rhys couldn’t even begin to stop his mouth from falling open.  Someone in his family had had a run-in with Torchwood?  How was that possible?

He asked just that question.

“Your great-grandfather,” Harkness answered.  “He was a shell-shocked young soldier who was sent back to Cardiff for care, but he found himself involved in something that could have destroyed the world.  He was a hero, Rhys.  He wasn’t well and yet he still managed to do what needed to be done to keep the world from ending.  In thanks for that, I kept him from being sent back to the Front.  I changed his name and set him up in a little village where he married and had kids, and eventually you were born. Thomas Llewellyn – or as we knew him, Tommy Brockless – was a hero and you come from a line of magic users.  It’s in your blood, Rhys Williams…the magic and the Rift are in your blood and bone and heart, and it’s time you knew it.”

“It doesn’t matter if you join Torchwood or not,” Ianto said softly, his gaze intent. “You were made for bigger and better things, and you deserve it.  You may be content to be a normal bloke who works a normal job and goes to the pub on the weekend and who hides his true self, although it’s completely unintentional.  If you don’t work for us, then can you at least promise to find something that is more toward your potential?”

It was like listening to his Gran, Rhys realised.  She’d always got onto him about his potential, especially about what he was accomplishing with his life.  It had been his Mam who’d been silently condemning of his choice of mate, and now Rhys did see that both of them had a point.  He’d thought he was happy, but now he knew…he’d only been content, and he was worth it to make that grab for happiness that he’d believed he’d had with Gwen. 

It had just taken a dragon and an immortal time traveller to finally convince him of that.

But then, family could often be accused of bias.  Harkness and Jones weren’t biased in the least.

“Well,” he finally said, feeling just a bit overwhelmed by everything he’d heard, but knowing what he was about to do was quite possibly the most right thing he’d ever done, “when do I start work?”

 

 

 


End file.
